Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

January, 2015

The first time Logan Howlett truly jumped, he was recovering from a bender in a seedy motel on the east side of Montreal. One moment he was face-down on a cheap mattress, and the next he was lying on an old polyester couch in a tiny apartment, watching what appeared to be a cheesy black and white horror movie with his head in someone’s lap. The sudden change of scenery was disorienting, and he was glad he was lying down because he might have toppled over otherwise. 

As it was, it was still jarring to suddenly be somewhere else and he momentarily panicked, bolting upright on the couch.

“You alright there, Ness?” A man’s voice came from behind him. Logan turned sharply, noting how he had gone from having a relatively short haircut to long, dark locks that flew about his head when making such abrupt movements.

The man on the couch beside him looked to be mid-thirties, with short light brown hair, five o’clock shadow, and soft brown eyes that were currently looking at Logan—Ness?—in amusement. Logan stared at the man for a brief moment, piecing things together. He did not recognize this man, but the man knew this body. The apartment, too, was not one he could ever remember having been, a cozy cracker box of an abode, with a mixture of artwork and vintage movie posters on the walls. There was only one way for Logan to be here.

He had jumped. 

This realization sent his mind reeling. In his near-200 years he’d never jumped, because who on Earth could be the Wolverine’s soulmate? The immortal, indestructible mutant with a metal skeleton and machetes in his hands? The answer was the man next to him, apparently, because Logan had jumped straight into the body of a woman who must have been incredibly important to him.

“Um.” Logan had never prepared for this scenario. What did he say to the man to his left? The one who was his soulmate? The one whose name he didn’t even know? How did he tell him, “Hey, I know you’re with a girl right now, but we just swapped places and you were actually made for me?” Already there was a physical pull that the mutant could feel beneath his breastbone, a drawing to this stranger-soulmate that was increasingly hard to ignore. Logan needed to clear his head, figure out how to respond. So he swung his legs off the couch and bolted for a door down a short hall that he hoped led to the apartment bathroom. “Give me a second.”

“Ness?” The man sounded confused. “Vanessa?”

Logan ignored him, opening the door and yes, it was the bathroom. He stepped inside and did his best not to slam the door shut. “I just need five minutes,” he called through the door. His voice was higher-pitched, definitely a woman’s voice. Which shouldn’t have surprised him given the long hair and the fact that this strange man was calling him “Vanessa,” but it still managed to throw him off. 

He stumbled to the counter and leaned over the sink, staring at the body’s face in the mirror. She was pretty, with large eyes set above a slim nose. This Vanessa had high cheekbones, soft lips, and onyx hair that wasn’t quite as long as it had felt earlier. She was gorgeous, actually. Whoever his soulmate was was a lucky man to be with a woman like her. 

Or maybe not so lucky, because the soul currently in this body just happened to be that of a hairy 200 year old mutant with a muscled build and a short fuse. The opposite of his soulmate’s type, if Logan had to guess. Shit . 

Logan rubbed a hand down his face. He’d never felt slighted that he didn’t have a soulmate, not really. Less than 50% of the population ever jumped; it wasn’t like he was an outlier for not having an other half. And it also made sense. So far, it seemed, Logan couldn’t die , either from injuries or natural causes. A soulmate he was destined to outlive would be an awful thing to have. Or so he’d thought. 

Even now, now that he was settling into this body (temporarily; studies had shown jumps never lasted more than a few hours), he could feel an aching in his chest when he thought of the still-nameless man outside the door—how the light had hit his eyes to reveal they weren’t just brown, but flecked with gold, and how his lips curved gently, like a calligrapher’s pen stroke, when he smiled. The term “butterflies in the stomach” was a juvenile and asinine turn of phrase…and also completely, 100% accurate. Logan had seen the man briefly, for mere seconds, didn’t even know his name , and he was already smitten. 

Without another thought, Logan turned from the mirror and opened one of the bathroom drawers. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for—pill bottles, maybe?—something with the man’s name on it. He found a clear plastic toiletry bag with the letters “WW” on it, along with a number of feminine effects like a hairbrush and handful of hair ties, but no medication. No labels with a name. So Logan opened the next drawer, and the next, finding only typical bathroom paraphernalia. On the fourth and final drawer, he hit the jackpot: beneath a bottle of two-in-one shampoo and conditioner there was a set of two American military dog tags, black metal on an ball chain. 

Special forces . These should tell him what he wanted. Logan picked up the tags and turned them over in his hand, noting the blood type—AB pos—as well as the religious denomination—“Origin,” whatever that was. The name on the tags stuck with him, though: Wade W. Wilson. 

Logan sat back on his haunches, turning the dog tags over in his hand. So he had a soulmate named Wade Wilson. The man had been in the United States military, and was damn good at it, too. 

For the briefest moment, Logan imagined telling this Wade Wilson who he was, letting him know he’d jumped to Vanessa just to find him. He could find out what they had in common and why the universe had paired them together. But it was nothing more than a self-indulgent fantasy, because of course Logan couldn’t tell Wade who he was, because of who he himself was.

He was Logan Howlett, the Wolverine, an alcoholic mutant from the Great White North who couldn’t die and whose closest friend was the bartender down the street, despite being a long-time not-quite-member of the X-Men. He hurt everyone and everything he loved, and he kept people he wanted to care about at an arm’s length for their own safety. And he’d have to do the same with Wade, because it was one thing to outlive your soulmate. It was entirely another to be responsible for their death. 

Logan dropped the dog tags and ran a hand through Vanessa’s hair. Wade seemed happy with her. It would be wrong of him to take that away from them, rob them of their happiness so Logan could entertain something like a normal life for all of six months (or however long it would take him to irreparably fuck everything up). 

“Ness? I’m three seconds away from breaking the door down, and I really don’t want to have to explain that to our landlord,” Wade said through the door. Logan stood then, scooping up the dog tags and dropping them back in the drawer. 

“Almost done,” he said. He looked back in the mirror, at the face of the woman who was undoubtedly back in the Montreal hotel room in his body, and wished the two of them well, because Wade wasn’t for him. Universe’s plan be damned, he wasn’t going to make things worse for his own selfish desires. No matter how much Wade’s presence, only a thin door away, called to him. 

Logan had once been told the guy everyone wants sticks around. Well, he wouldn’t be doing that. With any luck, he’d only suffer for another jump or two before the powers that be closed this window in his life and he could return to his lonesome existence. He had no idea how he was going to play the role of Vanessa…whoever she was. But something told him Wade would make good on knocking down the bathroom door if he didn’t say something soon, so he had to try. With one last glance in the mirror, he pulled open the door to find Wade there, slight concern on his face. 

“Are you sick? I knew that sushi place was a bad idea; you just had to have a Vegas roll.” Wade reached up to press the back of his hand to Vanessa’s forehead, and Logan flinched away. He didn’t want to touch this man he barely knew who just so happened to be his soulmate (because he knew he wouldn’t want Wade to stop if he did). That was the wrong move; Wade now looked downright worried. 

“It’s just a headache,” Logan quickly explained. “A really bad one. I just need some Tylenol and some peace and quiet.”

“Okay, sure,” Wade said, and his easy smile had Logan’s stomach flip-flopping in a way he tried very hard to ignore. God, he felt like a fucking school girl with a crush.  The man moved to the kitchen and opened a cabinet overflowing with vitamin and pill bottles. “Extra strength fine?”

“Yeah,” Logan said, and caught the bottle he was thrown. He mindlessly dry swallowed two tablets. His mind was elsewhere, and he hoped he could play it off as the headache.

“If it came on that suddenly, you should lie down,” Wade suggested, using a remote to turn off the TV and motioning to the couch. Yes, that was a good idea. Logan could sleep the jump away. Could ignore how every fiber of his being screamed to be known by this man who still didn’t know he , Logan, existed. 

Except, once he’d collapsed onto the couch, Wade was crawling over the back and sliding down to spoon him. Before Logan could react his back was pulled flush to Wade’s chest, one of the man’s arms wrapped around his waist. 

“I think now is the point that I mention how orgasms are great pain relief,” the man whispered seductively in Logan’s ear. 

“Give me an hour or two,” Logan answered, because, as much as his body loved that idea, doing anything of the sort that Wade was suggesting was a thousand different shades of wrong . Vanessa would be back here soon, and Logan would be back in Montreal, and Wade could make good on his move then. It didn’t hurt Logan. Imagining Vanessa and Wade two together didn’t twist like a knife in his chest at all . 

At least, that’s what he told himself. 

Wade’s body shook with a laugh. “Whatever you say, Ness.” He planted a kiss on her cheek and Logan’s hands balled into fists that the other man couldn’t see. 

The rest of Logan’s jump passed on the couch, and eventually the man behind him fell asleep. His breathing grew slow and even, punctuated by the occasional soft snore. It was far too intimate a scene for Logan to be comfortable with, but after three hours in Vanessa’s body, the jump finally— mercifully— ended. In the blink of an eye he was back in the hotel room in Montreal, standing at the window and staring out at the city lights as the sun set. Vanessa was back with Wade, and Logan was where he belonged. 

Alone.

Chapter Text

February, 2015

It was just under one month since Logan first jumped into Vanessa’s body that he got a text from the X-Men regarding a mission. Logan had spent more time in the bottle in the meantime, because being alone was one thing. Being alone knowing his soulmate was out there, and he couldn’t have him , was entirely another, and it required at least an extra hour at the bar a day. 

 Your team needs you, Scott Summers texted that day. Logan, who was currently on his third whiskey at half past noon, unlocked his phone and stared at the green text box for a good minute before deciding how to answer. He was more than happy to help out the X-Men when he was needed, but there were times he dreaded their texts. He was a consultant to the X-Men, not one himself, and he told Scott and Jean and Charles that every chance he got. He didn’t do teams. Not anymore , at least. Even knowing the fragments of his past that they did, it didn’t stop them from trying to get chummy.

Logan answered:  Do they now?

 We may have a lead on the Weapon X program, Scott responded. That had Logan sitting up straight on the barstool, sobered up almost instantly. The woman tending the bar, Tammy, flicked her eyes to him while she filled a glass from the tap for another early bird customer. 

 Where?

 There’s been some rumblings in Detroit that seem promising.

 Give me a few hours. I’ll be there, Logan texted. 

 It’s a six hour drive to HQ from Montreal, Logan.

 I said what I said. Logan was not about to let a lead on Weapon X go. Not after what Colonel William Stryker had done to him almost thirty years ago, and what he continued to do to other innocents. He would get where he needed to be, traffic laws be damned. 

 Or we could fly the X-Jet to you. Save us all some time, Scott answered. 

Oh. Yes, that was an option, wasn’t it?  Works for me. Logan downed the rest of his Windsor Canadian, and the bartender walked over to him.

“Leaving in a hurry?” Tammy asked. “You don’t normally vacate until at least 4 in the afternoon.”

Logan fished out his wallet, not looking up. “Something’s come up.”

“Well, good. Spend enough time on this barstool and you’ll melt into it eventually,” Tammy joked. Logan ignored the jab, good-natured as it may have been, and handed her a card that she ran quickly before handing it back to him. “I hope it’s a good something, honey.”

“We’ll see,” Logan answered. And he was out the door, headed for the Montréal-Trudeau International Airport. 

Logan’s time with the X-Men was…complicated. Fifteen or so years ago, Logan had been offered a place with the X-Men and a position teaching history at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. The prospect had been tantalizing at the time. On the one hand, a semi-normal life where he could put down roots while still having an outlet and the means to butcher anyone who willing associated themselves with Stryker; on the other, putting down roots had never worked for Logan in the past. 

His memory was still patchy from the adamantium bullet Stryker had put in his head decades ago, but he remembered his parents, and he remembered Rose, and he remembered the few others he’d tried to build a “normal” life with. Only a few of them survived meeting him for very long. Nightmares and metal claws did not mix well with soft, non-healing bodies. And the X-Men…he cared about them. He could see friendship, camaraderie, something he hadn’t had since Creed or Team X. But getting too close to them, and perhaps more importantly, them getting too close to him , could spell disaster. So he helped them where he could, assisting in missions, but he wasn’t one of them, much as they tried to persuade him to join officially. 

The X-Jet would take about forty-five minutes to touch down, and the drive from the bar to the airport was half an hour. By the time Logan had parked his Jeep and walked to the private terminal, he had a text from Scott telling him they had landed. And yes, there was the X-Jet, a modified Lockheed U-2, sleek and threatening on the tarmac. Logan flashed his badge at the private terminal and submitted to a pat down (metal detectors, for obvious reasons, were not a helpful tool for detecting if he had weapons on him or not), and approached. 

Scott was there with Remy and Ororo, all of them in their uniforms. 

“Ey, Logan! Ça se roule ?” Remy greeted in his thick Cajun accent as Logan approached. Logan, being Canadian, also knew French, but even after years of working with Remy his pronunciation was still incredibly difficult to understand. Still, he could get the gist half the time. 

“I’ll be better once we know if this is really Weapon X or not,” Logan answered. “What have we got?”

Scott ushered the team plus Logan onto the X-Jet, talking as he went. “It was a tip from a newly-manifested mutant who lives in Michigan. She said she was a survivor of an outfit run by a man named Ajax. He was able to get her to express her X gene through duress.”

“How do we know it was this Ajax, and not just her time?” Logan asked. He was more than willing to gut someone who had put an innocent through “duress,” of course, but this didn’t scream “Weapon X Program” so far. 

“She was in her forties,” Scott answered. Logan almost tripped. That sounded like Weapon X might have their hands somewhere in the pot. Mutations didn’t just appear twenty to thirty years after puberty. 

“Get suited and we’ll be on our way,” Scott told Logan. Logan rolled his eyes. 

“This again? I’m fine in what I am currently wearing. I’ve got a badge. That’s all I need.”

“You’re going to fight bad guys in a leather jacket and Chippewas?” Remy asked, looking Logan up and down.

“Suits are for teams. I’m a consultant ,” Logan affirmed, and took his seat.

Scott exhaled through his nose. “Consultant, teammate—call it what you want. You still work with us. You are a member of the X-Men. You don’t have to wear the suit all the time, but once in a while might be nice.”

Logan frowned at the duffle bag sitting to his left that he knew contained the aforementioned suit. “Yellow’s not my color.”

“It’s not mine, either,” Ororo said dryly.

“You’re one to talk,” Logan said, motioning to her stunning white suit. “Can we drop it? Badge yes, suit no.”

Remy and Ororo seemed unhappy but not surprised, and Scott appeared more annoyed than anything, but they all moved on. In the X-Jet, with a maximum speed of nearly 500 miles an hour, it would take just over an hour to reach Detroit. The four of them settled in for the short flight. 

Per the mission brief, their target was an abandoned hospital in southwest Detroit. The windows were boarded up, the interior stripped to the drywall, and on paper it hadn’t been in use since 2006. However, even Detroit urban explorers knew better than to target it; people had a habit of disappearing nearby, and the authorities never seemed in a hurry to find them.  

One quick landing and a thirty minute drive later, Logan and the X-Men arrived at the derelict building. It was uncharacteristically sunny for mid-February, but the ground was still covered in a deep blanket of snow and the frozen air crystallized each breath. The sun was already sinking towards the horizon and it cast long, late-winter shadows on the ground. 

“Smell anything?” Ororo asked Logan. Logan took a deep breath, and shook his head. 

“It smells old. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“We’ll see about that,” Scott answered, and the four of them made their way towards the boarded-up emergency department entrance. The closer they walked, the stronger the smells became, and Logan started to notice how off they were. There was a sterile smell of sanitizer, the saltiness of Ringer’s lactate, and beneath it all the pungent, caustic smell of formaldehyde. And they all smelled fresh. 

“There is something going on inside,” Logan said quietly. All four were at once on alert, just at the entrance now; Remy drew his cards, Ororo lifted her hands, Logan unsheathed his claws, and Scott rested a finger on the side of his visor. 

“We ready, then?” Scott asked. 

“ Allons ,” Remy said, grinning. Scott tapped the button on his visor, dropping the quartz shield and allowing the energy of his eye beams to shear through the boarded up doors. 

Gunfire lit up the ground immediately, and all but Logan dove for cover. He was the indestructible tank of the group, barreling through the hail of bullets to slash the gunmen to pieces and allow the X-Men inside. 

They were in the right place, alright. More people wielding automatic rifles appeared from the wings. Remy was beside him, charging cards and sending the explosives flying into the oncoming wave of combatants, while Scott and Ororo took off down the halls in search of the victims, and Logan did what he did best. He raced forward, dodging where he needed to and hacking enemies as they appeared, lost in the battle and the knowledge that something was going on here, and they were going to stop it . 

He never saw the jump coming.

It happened at the most inopportune time, of course. One minute Logan was skewering the gun-toting combatants, loving the rush of the kill and the smell of blood in the air a little too much, and the next he was in a loud, dimly-lit arcade, skee ball in hand. He blinked and took a step back, disoriented from the jump. He was back in Vanessa’s body; he recognized the feel of it now, and he definitely recognized the way his hair stood on end when Wade was close. A glance revealed that yes, Wade was nearby, at the skee ball machine right next to his—Vanessa’s.  

“Losing precious seconds there, Ness,” Wade taunted without turning from his machine. Each skee ball he sent up the ramp hit its mark. 

Logan swallowed. He was here, which meant Vanessa—oh, shit . Vanessa was in his body, in the middle of a fight. The mutant dropped the skee ball in his hand and turned, ready to do something, but he had no idea where to run. He hadn’t bothered to learn where Vanessa and Wade lived during his first jump. What were the odds they were near Detroit? 

Wade noticed Vanessa was no longer playing and he paused mid-throw, the skee ball still in his hand. “Ness? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he snickered. “The pain of losing finally getting to you?”

The pain of something would be getting to her. Logan sighed. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but she would survive thanks to his healing factor. She just had to hunker down while Scott, Remy, and Ororo finished off the enemy fighters. Still, Vanessa didn’t deserve this. Wade himself may have been special forces, but Logan would bet Vanessa hadn’t been in anything resembling a high-stakes fight in her life. He’d have to do some research when this jump ended, find out how many more of them he could expect to experience. But in the meantime, he had to play along. 

“Yeah,” Logan said, forcing his mind back to the arcade. “You, uh. You win. Can we get a drink?”

Wade grinned, finished throwing his last ball up the ramp, and ripped a massive wad of tickets out of his arcade machine. Then he reached over and pulled a much smaller chain of tickets from Vanessa’s, stuffing all the tickets in the pockets of his bomber jacket. “A drink sounds great . We can cash these later.”

Logan smiled weakly, still trying to get his bearings after the jump, and didn’t resist when Wade took his hand. In his head he told himself it was to keep up appearances, but he couldn’t deny the way his heart thundered in his chest at the other man’s proximity. It seemed wrong that he was here, enjoying the company of a man he had no claim to (no matter what the universe said) while Wade’s true significant other was in Detroit, thrown into a battle she wasn’t prepared for. Guilt wormed its way into his brain, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the stupid giddiness that Logan felt to be in his soulmate’s presence again.

It seemed Vanessa had not mentioned the first jump to Wade, either. His soulmate treated Logan with the same humor and care that he had during their initial swap. There was no awkwardness, no look that said, “Are you my girlfriend or are you my soulmate?” It was just…Wade, being Wade. 

The other man led Logan through the arcade, chattering away about the supremacy of skee ball versus other arcade games like hoops shooting or Dance Dance Revolution, but the mutant was only half-listening. He was dangerously close to telling Wade who he was this time, and that couldn’t happen. Instead, to occupy his mind, he kept his eyes peeled for any sign as to where in the world Wade and Vanessa lived.

They were at some place called the “Beercade,” judging by the neon signs in the window. Vintage games mixed with more modern attractions were tucked away in the back of the joint, and a fully stocked bar sat closer to the entrance. It was dark outside, and raining. Through the front windows, Logan could see cars and yellow cabs zipping by on the wet asphalt. A decal on the side of a cab caught Logan’s eye—NYC Transport. So they were in New York City. How… close . Just not close to where he needed them to be. 

“Two appletinis,” Wade told the bartender, and that brought Logan forcefully to the present. He knew he was trying to fit in and play the part of Wade Wilson’s girlfriend, but under no circumstances was he going to drink a fucking appletini. 

“Scratch one of those ‘tinis and give me a whiskey on the rocks,” Logan corrected. Wade’s eyes widened. 

“Playing with the big boys now, are we, Ness?” he said. The bartender set Wade’s neon green appletini in front of him, and slid Logan his tumbler of whiskey. Logan meant to sip at the drink, but he ended up downing it in one go, much to Wade’s amusement. 

“Look, I see skee ball really isn’t your thing, but I don’t want it to drive you to drink . Maybe we go back to the apartment and do something you are good at.” Wade took a sip of his appletini and waggled his eyebrows, and at first Logan thought the other man was making a crude joke, until he added, “You know. That Disney game. Villainous.”

“We’re just fine here, bub,” Logan said, forgetting who he was supposed to be masquerading as, and Wade’s eyebrows shot to his forehead.

“ Bub ? Jeez, don’t pull that one out when you’re riding me. What a great way to kill the fucking mood.” 

Jesus . Wade’s jokes were disarming, his smile bright, and Logan would be the first to admit this man wasn’t his type—god forbid he dated a guy who drank appletinis . Yet somehow it didn’t matter, and the knowledge that Logan couldn’t have him was devastating. He motioned for another whiskey from the bartender. 

“You okay? You’re weird tonight,” Wade noted. 

Logan waved the man off. “I’m fine. Just…headache. You know.”

“You’re getting a lot of those lately.”

And there was Logan’s opening, to tell Wade why . But then he thought of Vanessa, somewhere in Detroit, likely scared out of her mind, and he couldn’t bring himself to ruin it for her or Wade. So he sighed and shrugged. 

“The weather changes. It happens.” Logan sipped at his whiskey, wondering how to pass the rest of this jump. The last one had lasted for a few hours. He anticipated Vanessa would probably not want to be out in the middle of a crowded bar when she jumped back, and Logan himself thought that maybe it would be best to sleep through this jump as well. “I know the night is young, but…is Villainous still on the table?”

“You nerd ,” Wade teased, but closed their tab. They finished their drinks and took a short subway ride to an apartment in Brooklyn. The apartment was at worst a half-day drive away from Montreal, and even closer to the X Mansion. Logan did his best not to memorize the address, lest he get a wild hair when this was all over and try to seek out Wade. 

The apartment was just as Logan had remembered it when they entered. Cozy, if a little messy, with eclectic decor. Wade pulled a black box from a stack of games in the kitchen. This brought about another problem: Logan had no idea how to play this Villainous game. He’d heard of it, but it wasn’t as if he had anyone he could play with . Solitaire and poker were the games he knew best. And if Vanessa knew how to play, it would become apparent very quickly that Logan was not Vanessa. So, while Wade set up the game, Logan grabbed the instructions and tried to absorb as much as he could. Which wasn’t much, because the instructions may have been colorful, but they were dry, and each character had a different set of rules when played. He hoped Wade didn’t notice his furrowed brow as he read over the guide. 

Of course, Wade did. The man stopped setting up the game and frowned at Logan. “You didn’t honestly forget how to play, did you?” 

“I just need a refresher,” Logan said.

“On Villainous?” 

Logan sighed and dropped the booklet on the table. He was doing a very, very bad job of pretending to be Vanessa. 

“Look, Hot Stuff, you got me worried,” Wade said, approaching. Logan wanted to back away, but that would throw more fuel on the fire of Wade’s suspicion, so he stayed put as the other man put his hands on Logan’s shoulders. “Headaches, whiskey, not remembering how to play a game you’ve played a million times? It’s like you’re a different person.”

Logan swallowed. Shit shit shit shit shit. He couldn’t let Wade find out. He couldn’t ruin this for Vanessa, and he could not let his soulmate find out he was rejecting him. So he said the only thing that came to mind. 

“Work is…stressful.”

Wade tilted his head. “Work? Like, clients? Or coworkers?”

Logan wished his soulmate’s answer had told him anything about what this Vanessa did for a living so he could craft a convincing response. But since it didn’t, he made a guess at what would be easier to improvise off of. “Um. Coworkers.”

Wade’s face darkened. “Is it that Eddie dickstain again? God, he needs to leave you guys alone. Doesn’t he know the bartender isn’t supposed to hit on the dancers?”

A stripper? At least he knew what Vanessa did now. Unfortunately, Logan had a very small frame of reference to draw from; he hadn’t been to a club in a long time. Decades, actually. And things must certainly operate differently now. 

“Eddie’s just giving us trouble. It’s nothing I can’t handle. But it gets exhausting, after a while,” Logan said. “I just want to forget it all.” Wade pulled Logan into a hug. 

“Sure thing, Ness. I’ll tell you what: you can be Captain Hook this time. And I might even let you win.” Wade kissed Logan’s temple, and damn did that make Logan want more. 

Wade did not let Logan win, and in fact swept the floor with him. They played one game and Logan lost—miserably. But he thought he might do better in the second round, now that he had a hold on things. He should have known the first round had been Wade trying to let him win. Halfway through the second round, the infuriatingly simple yet somehow complex game was getting on Logan’s last nerve, and he was one more bad turn away from throwing the Captain Hook character piece against the wall like a petulant child. Thankfully, it never got to that point. A few moments later Logan blinked to find he was suddenly sitting back in the X-Jet. The transition, as always, left him momentarily stunned, but when it clicked as to where he was, he leaned forward in his seat and groaned. 

“The tataille has returned,” Remy, who was standing nearby, joked. 

“Is it you, Logan?” This was Ororo, who was sitting next to him with her hand on his shoulder. Logan rubbed his hands down his face. “Or are you still Vanessa?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He was desperate to know what had happened to Vanessa, but he was almost afraid to ask. “…What happened while I was gone?”

“Sha was a trooper once she realized what had happened,” Remy said fondly. “It’s a good thing I was close by. She didn’t get too banged up.”

Thank god. Logan sat up. His jacket was a little worse for the wear, but overall it didn’t look like the poor woman had been put through too much during the jump. 

“But hey,” Remy continued. “You found your soulmate. What a way, huh?”

That startled Logan, the casual way the Gambit was taking this. He then took note of how Remy had a wide grin that lit up his face, and Ororo was smiling softly at him. As if the both of them thought this was a good thing. As if him being jolted away from a battle he had a stake in to spend time with a man he wanted but couldn’t have was the best thing since sliced fucking bread. 

“There’s Romeo!” Scott. The mutant entered the X-Jet, and he, too, was beaming. But of course he was. He was the only member of the X-Men with a soulmate that anyone knew of. “Have a good jump?”

“Forget the jump,” Logan asked. “Did we find this Ajax?”

“No Ajax, but there were a handful of mutant and human test subjects that we helped evacuate. You were gone a while. We were able to get them back where they needed to go with the help of the local authorities,” Scott answered. Logan seethed. It was a good thing they’d rescued the victims, but it burned that he hadn’t been around to help. All because of a stupid soulmate jump. 

“But let’s not forget the jump,” Ororo spoke up, “because you have found your other half. Does that not make you happy?”

Logan didn’t want to get into the complexities of his feelings regarding the whole situation with his present company. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know about this, period. 

“It’s…complicated,” Logan answered. 

“Why? Is your soulmate Ted Bundy?” Remy snickered, but was silenced with a look from Scott. 

“We understand it’s not our business,” Scott said, prepping the X-Jet for takeoff. “But just know we’re happy for you, however you choose to play this out.”

If only there were a way to play this out that wasn’t devastating to at least one person involved. Remy, Ororo, and Logan strapped themselves in for takeoff, and Logan’s heart ached all the way back to Montreal.

Chapter Text

March, 2015

It wasn’t long after the second jump that Logan received a text, this time from Jean. It was not about a mission or Weapon X; it was about his soulmate. 

Scott told me the news about your jump in Detroit. Congratulations, Logan! she wrote. Logan stared at that text a long time, his emotions rolling like a turbulent sea. 

Thanks, he finally answered, because that was the safest thing to say. 

What is their name? What are they like? Jean’s texts came rapid-fire. Have you met them in-person yet? You should bring them around! We’d love to meet them. 

Logan rubbed a weary hand down his face. Of course Jean would be excited for him. Of course she would be thankful he experienced the lure as she once had. Of course this seemed like the perfect bookend to what they were just under two decades ago. 

We’ll see. Logan answered only her last comments and ignored the rest. He had no intention of ever doing any of what she suggested. 

There had to be a way to know when the jumps would end, or perhaps even end them prematurely. His web searches had gotten him nowhere, and he thought he could use the help of an actual scientist, not Dr. Google. But there was only one of those he trusted—Doctor Hank McCoy. The Beast. He swallowed whatever discomfort he felt at the prospect of showing up at the Mansion and decided to make a weekend trip out of the deal.

So it was that, ten days after Logan’s second jump, he found himself crossing the Canada-United States border in his Jeep, headed for 1407 Greymalkin Lane in New York. His thumb tapped the steering wheel the whole way. He was agitated, to say the least. There’d been no new leads on the Weapon X project since the mission in Detroit, nothing more on this Ajax person. But Logan found himself anxious that if there was another break, he and Vanessa would swap bodies a third time, once more throwing her into a less-than-ideal situation, and forcing Logan into the proximity of someone he craved on a level that he couldn’t act on. 

The sky on his drive was partly cloudy, the air outside sitting at 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The roads were dry, the drivers lead-foots, and Logan found himself pulling into the X Mansion’s drive a good thirty minutes sooner than expected. He parked the car and made his way to the entrance. There was no need to notify anyone of his presence; it had been made clear he was more than welcome on the grounds whenever he pleased. With any luck Hank would be the only one he saw today. 

As usual, his luck was rotten.

It was Jubilee who spotted him. He had barely set foot inside the grand foyer when she was calling his name from the second-floor landing.

“Logan!” she crowed, throwing a leg over the staircase railing and sliding down. She ran across the room and threw her arms around him. Logan took a step back, taken off guard by the effusive greeting. After a moment to recover, he returned the hug. 

“Hey, Jubes,” he said, unable to keep the affection from creeping into his voice. Her joy was infectious. In another world (one where he didn’t harm everyone he cared about), he might have visited more often just to see her. 

“We didn’t know you were coming!”

“Technically I’m not here,” he answered. Jubilee looked up at him, frowning. 

“You know you don’t have to be so secretive, right?” she said, and pulled away. “You could stay here and no one would complain. Might even be a cause for celebration.” 

“I just need to see Hank.” Logan pointedly avoided the topic of his off-campus consulting position with the X-Men. Jubilee huffed, and her shoulders slumped.

“He’s in his lab, as usual,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She started to leave, and Logan felt more than a little bit guilty for blowing her off. He chewed the inside of his lip, debating his next move, before calling after her.  

“It’s been a while since I’ve been down there, y’know,” he said. “And this place is a maze. I could use a guide, if you aren’t busy.” An obvious lie; of course he knew where to go. But Jubilee brightened at his words and returned to link her arm with Logan’s.

“I’m not on the school orientation team for nothing.” She led him down to the lower levels of the Mansion into the X-Men HQ, both of them passing through a number of biometric scans to reach the restricted areas. The ominous sound of an organ floated down the hall when the last door opened, getting louder as they approached a room further down the corridor. 

“Beast! Look who’s here!” Jubilee said as they pushed open the door to the lab. Hank, who had been looking through a microscope at the far side of the lab, turned. A smile spread across his face when he saw Logan. 

“Ah! Look who decided to pay a visit,” the blue-furred mutant said, switching off the light on his scope and approaching. “It is good to see you again, Logan.”

Logan shoved his hands in his pockets and returned the smile. “Hey, Hank. Sounds like a horror movie in here.”

Hank looked at the radio on the countertop and flicked the power switch off. “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor does have that effect. Now tell me, what mission brings you here?”

Logan glanced at Jubilee. She hadn’t alluded to the fact that he’d jumped, so maybe Scott, Jean, Ororo, and Remy had kept quiet about what happened in Detroit. The less people who knew about it the better, he guessed. Jubilee caught his eye and sighed, but it was good-natured this time. 

“Fine, I’ll give you your moment with the doc,” she said. “Good to see you! Maybe stick around for a while.” The teen turned on her heel and left the lab, the door swinging shut behind her. 

Hank raised an eyebrow. “Not an X-Men mission, then?” he asked. Logan leaned back against the benchtop and shook his head. 

“Not…exactly. What do you know about soulmates?”

Hank hmmed. “It’s not my area of study. Biochemistry and quantum neurophysiology are very different fields, unfortunately.”

Logan felt his mood plummet. “So you don’t know anything.”

“I didn’t say that,” the other mutant said. He walked away from Logan, disappearing behind a wire rack that held an organized assortment of reagents and other scientific accoutrements. He reappeared moments later with a large medical tome in hand. The black text across the rust red cover read, “The Fundamentals of Soulmates and Human Quantum Neurophysiology.” It was thick . 

“What, exactly is your question?” Hank asked, setting the book on the counter beside Logan. 

“I need to know how long the jumps continue after the initial one,” he said, pulling his hands from his pockets only to cross them over his chest. Hank chuckled. 

“Well, that’s an easy one. All the way up until one meets their soulmate in person,” he answered. Logan’s mood fell even further. The studied mutant continued, “True love’s kiss is a common trope in fairytales, but it is not without its basis in fact. The soulmate bond is solidified through a complex swapping of chemical signaling molecules, such as hormones. And the simplest way to do that is with, well, a kiss.”

Logan couldn’t help the face he made. Shit. “So, if a person who jumped were to, say, decide not to go looking for their other half…”

Hank blinked in surprise. “Why would someone do that?”

“Do you know or not?”

The other mutant flipped to the index in the back of the book, a clawed finger running down the alphabetized topics before finding the one he was looking for. He turned the page to halfway through the book and stopped in one particular section. The heading was a series of long, scientific words that Logan didn’t even try to sound out. Hank quickly skimmed the thick walls of text on the page. 

“Rejecting the soulmate call has not been seen on a large scale since the time of monarchies and arranged marriages,” he summarized. “In fact, there are no recorded instances of it since the early 1800s, and therefore the studies on it are limited. However, it appears the act of jumping does not cease without a kiss and solidification of the bond. Those who reject the call will jump indefinitely.”

Fucking shit. Logan was, to put it eloquently, fucked seven ways to Sunday. “Indefinitely,” in this case, meant until Wade’s unavoidable death. Logan would jump every month for the rest of the other man’s existence, watching him age and live his life, while never able to be a part of it. He would suffer his soulmate’s death regardless of if he answered the call and formed the bond. He had the very sudden urge to punch something, but didn’t dare harm anything in Hank’s lab.  

“Why do you ask, Logan?” Hank asked. Logan glanced at the other mutant’s face and saw something like understanding in his eyes. He knew exactly why Logan was asking. 

“Not being able to die is a curse, and don’t let anyone tell you differently,” Logan spat, angry at the universe and the unfairness of his predicament. Hank’s expression morphed into something sympathetic as Logan pushed away from the benchtop and made to leave. 

“Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?” Hank said. The words tugged at Logan’s heart, causing it to twist painfully inside his ribcage. He sighed and paused by the door that led back into the hall. 

“Try living two hundred years and see how that quote hits afterwards,” he said over his shoulder, before pulling the door open and storming into the main corridor. It was quiet without the organ music blaring inside the lab. He stood there, arms hanging limply at his sides, faced with the knowledge that he would live a lifetime with his soulmate, only through someone else’s eyes. It hurt . 

“You look like you just saw the Canadiens get creamed by the Bruins,” Jubilee said, popping up at his shoulder. Logan, who had been lost in his own misery, startled at the sound of her voice. 

“The hell are you still doing here?” He didn’t mean his words to be quite so harsh, but his claws were halfway out and the knowledge of what he could have done to her because of a simple jumpscare was terrifying. This was why he didn’t want to be an X-Man. This was why he didn’t want to be around people . Jubilee smirked, not noticing how close he’d come to hurting her as he quickly sheathed the knives in his hands. 

“Didn’t want you getting lost down here. It was you who said you don’t come around often.”

“Yeah. Right. Well, got what I came for, I guess. Lead the way out.”

Jubilee once more took his arm, but instead of taking him to the exit, she led him deeper into the subterranean levels. Logan opened his mouth to ask where she was taking him, but her plan became clear when she stopped outside a very specific set of large, sliding doors stylized with an “X.” 

It was not the exit; it was the Danger Room. 

Jubilee pressed a button beside the large doors and they slid open to reveal the cavernous room. “You looked like you needed to kill something before going back up.”

A fondness for the teen welled up in Logan’s gut. She was a good kid. Yes, he would very much like to kill something. 

“What’ll it be?” Jubilee asked. “Stryker, Apocalypse? Mutant hunters?”

Logan wasn’t feeling strategy. He wanted to hack and slash. “Give me two hundred Brood,” he answered, and Jubilee grinned. 

“One legion of Brood, coming up.”

March-November, 2015

As Hank predicted, the jumps did not stop. Each one came 28 days after the last, like clockwork. At least Logan could anticipate them now, and could make sure he wasn’t in a situation that would negatively impact Vanessa when they happened. Which was not hard to do, as the few small missions the X-Men needed him on were close to the very end, or the very beginning, of the month. No more leads on this Ajax or Weapon X, though. 

In his time with the X-Men over the next few months, no one brought up his soulmate. He got looks from Scott, Jean, Remy, and Ororo when he worked with them—questioning, concerned—but no one outright said anything to him. He was grateful. He put up a mask of indifference most of the time, but inside he was crumbling. Each jump chipped further away at his heart.

In mid-March, Wade and Vanessa attended a St. Patrick’s Day party at a bar called Sister Margaret's. Logan jumped in halfway through the event, and the disorientation from the jump was compounded by the effect of alcohol on a body without a healing factor. But the Guinness tasted better when it actually got him wasted, and when Wade drunkenly kissed him—Vanessa—he didn’t resist, because it meant nothing. This was Vanessa’s body, Vanessa’s hormones, not his. The bond, ultimately, remained incomplete. 

In April, Wade was gone on a trip somewhere, and Vanessa was on the phone with him when Logan jumped. It was late morning and as he picked up the conversation where his soulmate’s girlfriend had left off, he realized the sound of Wade’s laugh after the man made a stupid joke was the best sound he’d ever heard. 

In May, the couple was caught in an unexpected rainstorm in Central Park. Logan appeared when they were already soaked to the bone, all laughing smiles, huddled beneath a tree as the storm passed. He glanced up at Wade, noticing the way the other man’s eyes glittered like polished tiger’s eye in the light, and he thought he could never get tired of looking at them. 

In June, they were not in New York. Logan wasn’t sure where , but it was a beach with white sands and turquoise water. Hawaii? The Caribbean? Either way, it was somewhere pleasantly warm. It had been ages since the mutant had entered a body of water deeper than a bathtub thanks to his adamantium-coated skeleton, but Vanessa had none of that. He enjoyed being able to go into deeper water without worry. 

Wade tackled him in the shallow surf and they ended up lying on the sand, kissing on the beach. It was like the scene in “From Here to Eternity,” a movie that Logan hadn’t scene in ages , but Wade assured him it was actually a scene from “Shrek 2.” He was an idiot. Logan didn’t care. 

In July, Logan appeared late at night as Wade and Vanessa were returning to the apartment from…something. It didn’t matter, because he could feel Wade’s hand in his own and the electricity crackled in the air between them. The street they were on was riddled with cracked pavement and trash piles leaned against the building exteriors, but somehow, walking it with Wade, it felt like a romantic walk on the beach they’d left a month ago.

In August, salty air rusted the main door to the apartment building, causing its hinges to squeak loudly with every person who entered. The heat of the summer was intense, and Logan jumped when the two of them were lying in bed, twisted in sweaty bedsheets. Their A/C must be out, and the oppressive heat coupled with the noise every few moments from someone pushing open the front entrance made it hard to sleep. For Vanessa, at least. Wade was snoring softly again, his mouth hanging ever so slightly open in the dim late-night light. He was so beautiful it made Logan’s heart ache. 

In September they were singing in a rental car, getting lost upstate as the leaves changed from green to red to vibrant orange. The jump didn’t last long enough for Logan to see their destination, but the ride there, with Wade’s hand in his on the center console, was enough to have him pining yet again for something that he couldn’t have.

In October, Logan found them in a pumpkin patch on a farm somewhere in New York. It was a scene from a cheesy rom-com, with fresh-pressed cider and soft flannels and the promise of chillier weather to come. Logan was at ease in Vanessa’s body now, but sometimes he wondered if Wade noticed the change when he showed up. Surely the air didn’t crackle with an that electric energy when Logan wasn’t around. That was the lure, and Vanessa was not Wade’s soulmate. Occasionally he would look in the other man’s deep brown eyes and see a questioning look there, but it was always fleeting. It meant nothing. 

In November, the eleventh time Logan jumped, they were starting to celebrate Christmas before Thanksgiving. Or Wade was, at least. Logan got the distinct impression Vanessa wanted November to pass before Christmas entered the picture. 

“I’m not changing the playlist,” Wade was saying when Logan showed up. He turned the volume up for emphasis on the original “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” The scene the mutant had popped into was chaos at best—a tiny fake Christmas tree that had seen better days was sitting on the end table, surrounded by tiny baubles and tinsel strings. Vanessa had been sitting on the couch when the swap occurred, a glass of rum and coke in her hand. She was pleasantly tipsy; not drunk, like St. Patrick’s Day, but light and floaty. Wade must have been in the same boat, because he staggered on his feet as he attempted to decorate the tree. 

Logan was inclined to take Vanessa’s side on this—Christmas belonged in December, not mid-November. But something about seeing Wade sing Ricardo Montalbán’s part to the holiday classic had him not caring. The man’s voice was below average at best, off-key and cracking in an attempt to reach notes far out of his range, and yet he never wanted Wade to stop. 

“What’s in this drink?” Logan sang in time with the music. “Somehow, you don’t sound half bad.”

“It’s that Christmas magic, baby!” Wade crooned back. He dropped a pathetic-looking angel on top of the tree. “Viola!”

“Looks like shit,” Logan snickered. Wade frowned, looking legitimately upset by the comment. 

“It does not. It’s like Charlie Brown’s tree. Just needs someone to love it.” The man appraised the tree, tilting his head and holding up his hands like a painter studying his subject. The song changed to Frank Sinatra’s “Christmas Waltz.” Perhaps it was the rum. Perhaps it was that “Christmas magic” in the air. More than likely, it was Logan’s will crumbling before the soulmate lure. Whatever it was, he stood from the couch, set his drink on the floor, and crossed the room to grab Wade’s hand. 

“Dance with me,” he said. The other man raised an eyebrow. 

“Dance with you? To this?” Wade snorted in disbelief, but the mood was set and a tipsy Logan was throwing caution to the wind. 

“I’ll lead,” he said, taking the man’s hand in his left and setting his right on Wade’s hip. He pulled his soulmate’s body to him and moved them across the the living room floor in time with the music. 

“Since when do you know how to waltz?” Wade asked, sounding genuinely shocked. Logan chuckled. He’d enjoyed a good dance in the 40’s and 50’s, and had even danced to this exact song with—

Nope. He wasn’t going to go there. Not tonight. Besides, Wade was still waiting for an answer, and Logan couldn’t possibly tell him he’d danced to the song when Sinatra had first released it, so he said, “I took a lot of dance classes. A waltz was a given.”

“A woman of many talents,” Wade said wistfully. “How did I get so lucky?”

Woman. A lump formed in Logan’s throat. It was a reminder of how this wasn't real, how this wasn’t for him. In the near future, he and Vanessa would return to their true bodies. Vanessa would fall asleep next to Wade and Logan would fall asleep alone. God, the rum had it out for him tonight, because the thought actually had him tearing up. 

“Hey, Hot Stuff, it’s not that serious,” Wade said, noticing the glassiness of Logan’s eyes. He brushed his thumb across Logan’s cheek, catching a tear as it fell. The waltz ended, rolling into something soft by Mannheim Steamroller, and Wade wrapped his arms around Logan’s shoulders and pulled him closer. “I love you.”

And dammit, Logan wished those words were meant for him. Would have given anything for it to be so. But they weren’t, and they would never be. 

The rest of the night went on, more subdued, and Logan drank three more rum and cokes just to stop feeling. The one good thing about these jumps was the fact that Vanessa was a lightweight, relatively speaking, and she got drunk fast. It was nice to stop feeling for a bit. Of course when the jump ended and he returned to his body, he found himself stone-cold sober on a bed in Montreal, staring at “It’s A Wonderful Life” playing on a small RCA. 

“You see, George, you’ve really had a wonderful life,” Clarence said on the screen. “Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?”

Logan’s heart shattered in his chest in that moment. The misery and unfairness of this whole goddamn situation came crashing down on him, a stark contrast to the Christmas bliss from moments ago, and the resulting rage that overtook him was so strong it was staggering. He did nothing to reign it in. This had been one of his worst years on record, and that was saying something given the last two centuries he’d lived through. Every moment of joy had been stolen from someone else, someone who didn’t deserve the hell he was putting her through. 

Logan was sick of feeling like shit. There was no Danger Room to release his anger in, but there was textured drywall and an ancient vacuum-tube TV. He didn’t think twice before unsheathing his claws and spearing them through the television set. "It's A Wonderful Life" cut out, leaving him in silence, breathing hard and still feeling awful. 

“Fuck!” he shouted, not caring if anyone heard him. And no one did. No one came running, no one pounded on his door and told him to shut up. No one cared that much. He fell back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. 

In the morning, he’d deal with the fallout of his outburst and the cost of the damage he’d caused. Then he’d drag his sorry ass to a bar and tilt back a bottle or two of Lagavulin Single Malt Scotch Whiskey, and he’d try to forget November ever happened. 

And in 28 more days, he’d do it all over again. 

Chapter Text

December, 2015

It was approaching Christmas when Logan jumped again. He had dreaded the day for the whole month, and when it happened he braced himself for the slew of emotions that came with being so close to Wade and yet so, so far. 

He was not prepared for the dim apartment that greeted him, completely devoid of anything festive. That didn’t seem like Wade. There were no lights, there was no music playing, and not even his stupid Charlie Brown tree was up. Instead, there was an ocean of wadded up tissues. They were on the end table, on the couch, on the floor. Logan was sitting in the midst of them. He frowned. Was someone sick?

And then he saw the brochures sitting on the end table, colorful yet sterile, somehow. Coping with Advanced Cancer. Cancer Fact Sheet. Treatment Options For Cancer. Chemotherapy and Radiation: What You Need To Know.  

Yes, someone was sick. Just not in the way he’d anticipated. The titles hit Logan like a freight train. Cancer? Who the fuck had cancer? There was no clue as to the patient. It could have been Vanessa. It could have been Wade. It could have been a distant relation or a coworker that Logan didn’t know about. He stood, brushing the used Kleenex onto the floor, and reached for one of the pamphlets. It offered no clues. Vanessa had obviously been crying a while when Logan had jumped, and that begged the question: where was Wade? It seemed very out of character for the other man to not be with this woman who he treated so tenderly. Who he loved . 

Logan searched the apartment for clues, but he had to admit he didn’t look very hard. It felt wrong for him to intrude on this diagnosis, whoever’s it might be, when he had no business being there. Wade never showed up for the duration of the jump, and Logan passed the time with a glass of rum and something harmless on the TV. He expected he’d return to his room in a Montreal hostel in time, and Vanessa could go back to her mourning. 

He could have never anticipated what he saw when the jump ended. 

It was his room in the hostel—a twin bed, a desk, a chair—but the entire space was covered in Post It notes and scraps of paper. Logan frowned, wondering who had pranked him. But then he looked closer, and sucked in a breath. Each note had an identical message scribbled on it in black pen: 

Logan stared dumbly at the notes. A bad feeling wormed its way into his gut. The Post Its were everywhere, all over the walls and the furniture and even on his pillow. It seemed like Vanessa had spent the entire jump writing them. This had to be about the cancer diagnosis. Was it her? A horrible thought hit Logan: had Wade left Vanessa because of her illness? It didn’t track with what Logan knew of the other man. There was, really, only one way to find out what was going on. 

He had to call her. 

Finding his phone was difficult. When he’d jumped, the room had been in mild disarray, but with all the Post Its now covering every surface, he had entirely forgotten where he’d left the device. It took him ten minutes of searching and picking up paper squares before he located it (on the floor, in the pocket of a pair of jeans, beneath his bed). He pulled it out and dialed the number Vanessa had left, hesitating before pressing “Call.”

What did this mean for him and Wade if Vanessa was reaching out? Logan had sworn zero contact. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t get involved in any way outside of the jumps. But Vanessa had kept the secret of the body swapping from Wade, so surely calling her didn’t break that promise. Still, he hesitated. 

“Just fucking call her,” Logan growled to himself. Finally, with a frustrated noise, he tapped the green button and heard the phone start to ring. Vanessa picked up on the second ring. 

“Logan?” Her voice sounded higher than he was used to. Maybe it was the stress, or maybe it was simply hearing it from the outside. 

“…Yeah,” Logan answered, unsure what else to say.

“Oh thank god,” Vanessa breathed. “I…I don’t know how to say this. There’s so much wrong with what I’m doing. But I don’t know who else to go to, I don’t know what Wade’s gotten himself into—”

“Wait, what?” Logan frowned. This didn’t sound like cancer was the main issue. What was going on? 

“Yes,” Vanessa said. “He… we found out last week. He has cancer. Really advanced, too. In his lungs, liver, brain. They gave him six months at most.”

Logan was suddenly very far away from his body. Wade was dying? He hadn’t entertained the scenario that the treatments wouldn’t work. It seemed so wrong that the bright, always-joking man would have terminal cancer. 

“We were going to look at options—there was some experimental shit in Norway we could try—but he came home a couple days ago with this card, said it was for something called “X Genesis.” I didn’t know what the fuck that was, he said some predator at Sister Margaret’s gave it to him—” She was rambling. Logan couldn’t blame her. His mind was still tripping over itself trying to reconcile that Wade was dying of cancer. “—I told him we should try anything, y’know? Do what we could. I didn’t think he believed me. But, Logan, he’s gone . He left, packed a bag and just left. The note he wrote says he’ll be back when he’s better.”

That explained the tissues and the empty apartment. “So what do you need my help for?” Logan asked, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I mean, it sucks. But if he wants to try that treatment alone…”

Vanessa took a deep breath. “I need you to see the card he brought home,” she said. “Every time you were in my body, I was in yours. I probably heard some stuff I shouldn’t have with your X-Men. I know about Ajax. And that was the name Wade gave me.”

Logan was suddenly very, very present, his blood running cold. Cancer. Experimental treatment. X Genesis. Ajax . Was this a trick to get people to willingly take part in the Weapon X program? Had Wade, of all people, just served himself up on a platter for the bastards? 

“Logan, we need to find him. I saw what these Weapon X people did in Detroit. I’m so worried, he shouldn’t be alone, he shouldn’t go through that —” 

“I’m on my way,” Logan said before she could finish. “Text me your address. I’ll be there.”

Vanessa sniffled over the phone. “You don’t even know our address?”

Logan didn’t want to explain why he’d never learned the address, so he lied instead. “I can’t think right now. Text me the address, I’ll leave now and be there in a few hours.”

“Yeah, okay,” Vanessa said. “See you, um…See you soon.”

The line went dead, and moments later the address to an apartment on E 34th Street in NYC popped up on Logan’s phone from the number he’d just called. He saved the address, and then saved Vanessa’s number in his phone. Just in case. 

And then he was gone, throwing the few possessions he kept on him in a duffel bag. He checked out of the hostel, threw the duffel in the backseat of his Jeep, and punched the E 34th Street address into Google Maps. The drive wasn’t much longer than if he was headed for Xavier’s, but he felt every minute of the almost seven hour trip. 

The whole way he drove, he thought about what he would say, what he would do, when he met Vanessa. He hated himself for thinking that letting Wade go was just moving up the inevitable. What would be better: feeling the man die now, or in six months when the cancer finally took him? 

You’re going to hell for even thinking that , Logan chided himself. Of course he had to go after Wade and save him from whatever X Genesis would put him through. Of course he had to give Vanessa her closure. He owed the two that. And, if Ajax was involved in some way, he could prevent the man from doing anything to anyone else again. 

It was three in the morning when Logan pulled up to the familiar apartment. It was, of course, pay to park. He deposited what spare American change he had in the glove box in the pay station—it bought him all of 45 minutes. And then he stood there at the pay station, staring straight ahead, trying to work up the courage to go inside. 

“Logan?” Vanessa’s voice came from behind him. He turned to see the woman standing in the doorway of the rusty apartment building entrance, and looking straight-on at a face he’d only seen in the mirror was momentarily disorienting. He was taller than her by at least six inches, which was not what he’d expected. Vanessa must have been having similar thoughts. The two stared at each other for a moment in the light of a single flickering streetlamp, and the initial silence grew awkward quickly. 

“I’m here,” Logan finally said. 

Vanessa sniffed, and managed a weak smile. Her eyes were red and bloodshot; the tears had only stopped recently. “Yeah. I see that. Do you want to come inside? We can…talk things out there.”

Logan nodded and gave a last look around before following the woman inside. The apartment felt both familiar and alien at the same time. Everything was as it had been in his jump mere hours ago, but he was seeing it from six inches higher and through different eyes. It was the strangest feeling.

Vanessa had cleaned up in the hours since he’d called her; no Kleenex on the furniture, no cancer brochures on the table. But there was a black business card on the counter printed with silver text on the back. There was a phone number on the card—236-555-0199—but nothing else. Logan picked it up, turning it over in his hand, as if there might be some hidden clue printed in heat-sensitive ink. Nothing on it that mentioned X Genesis or Ajax specifically, but that information had likely been verbal only. 

“Well?” Vanessa asked, watching him anxiously, her arms crossed like she was trying to hold herself together. 

“I assume you tried calling the number,” he said. Vanessa nodded. 

“It’s disconnected.” 

Logan hmm ed. “It’s Canadian. The 236 area code is for British Colombia, mostly Tri Cities.”

Vanessa’s eyes widened. “He’s not even in the US anymore?”

“No way of knowing,” Logan grunted. “Probably multiple facilities in different countries, considering we busted one in Detroit.” He set the card back on the counter, thinking. “I’m…going to make a call.”

“To the X-Men?” 

“Yes.” Logan was hesitant to include them, but he couldn’t let his lone wolf tendencies put innocent lives—more specifically, Wade’s life—at risk. If they could help him get his soulmate back, if this was Weapon X, he had to ask. “Give me a moment.”

He debated stepping into the hall, but this early in the morning he’d disrupt more people than he wanted. And besides, Vanessa knew the X-Men simply from jumping into his body. So Logan pulled out his phone where he was standing in front of the kitchen island, pausing briefly because Scott was going to be upset about the hour, before deciding he didn’t exactly care and calling the other mutant anyway. The call rang four times before Scott picked up. 

“You better have a good reason for calling at 3 am,” the other mutant said, voice thick with sleep. 

“I have a lead on Ajax,” Logan answered. He heard sheets rustling and imagined Scott sitting up. 

“What is it?” Scott’s voice was all business now. Logan exhaled through his nose, unsure of how to explain any of the situation. 

“My sou—” Logan stopped before he labeled Wade his soulmate, “— someone I know has cancer and was promised treatment at some place called X Genesis. Ajax’s name was dropped, and he had a business card with a disconnected number. It’s Canadian, though.”

A pause. “Who do you know who has cancer?” Scott asked. Logan sighed, frustrated. He mentioned Ajax, and that was what Scott chose to get hung up on?

“Doesn’t matter. They went off in search of Ajax.”

“Do you have any evidence? Other than a name?”

Logan blinked. “You need more than that? ”

“Ajax is not a common name, but it’s highly likely there are more than a few other people with it.” Scott sounded tired. “If you have a specific location or more proof, I’m happy to talk it out with the Professor and get someone out there. But, Logan, do you even know where in Canada this X Genesis is supposedly located?”

“That’s the problem,” Logan bit out. “He is missing.”

“Who?”

A beat. Logan ground his teeth, knowing that keeping his secret wasn’t an option at this point. Vanessa was watching him, her face unreadable. Finally, the mutant sighed. “My soulmate.”

“We’ve skipped a few important points here, Logan,” Scott said.

“I know. I can and will explain. But…he’s missing. I need to find him.”

“And I sympathize. But without any leads other than a defunct phone number, we have no way of locating him,” Scott explained. “There’s nothing directly linking him to Weapon X, either. That ties our hands on what we can and can’t do. We may work with the UN, but we are based in the United States. Tearing Canada apart on hearsay could cause an international incident we can’t afford. I’m sorry.”

Logan’s grip tightened on his phone. “So no help.”

“If you can find us something more substantial—”

Logan didn’t want to hear it. “Goodnight, Scott.” And he hung up. In the kitchen, Vanessa looked away. Fresh tears welled in her eyes. 

“Alright, so no help there,” she said. “Now what?”

Logan wasn’t going to roll over. There was something going on, and his Wade— Vanessa’s Wade—was in way over his head. Scott may have needed proof, but Logan didn’t. He just needed to get across the continent. He was Canadian, and he wasn’t officially an X-Man. He had more freedom to work within the nation. “I’m still going after him.”

Vanessa frowned. “We’re going after him.”

“Look, Vanessa—”

“No, you look. I might not be a mutant with special powers, but I’ve been there for Wade through everything,” Vanessa bit out, her voice suddenly angry. Logan resisted the urge to flinch. “And I’ll be damned if I let you—who, by the way, Wade doesn’t even know—go find him alone. I need your help, but I’m not sitting back and doing nothing when you didn’t have the balls to come forward to him months ago.”

Logan glared, hands flexing at his sides. “It’s dangerous.”

“So was you kicking me out of my body into a fight with Weapon X,” Vanessa said, “You could have removed me out of the picture long ago, but you didn’t. And I’m not leaving now that it’s inconvenient for you.”

“You could get hurt this time,” Logan tried to reason. “Your body doesn’t have my healing factor.”

Vanessa snorted. “I'm not going to fight next to you. I’m not good at that even with your abilities; I learned that back in February. But I’m not staying here.”

They stared at each other across the kitchen island, but Logan couldn’t ignore Vanessa’s point. “Okay. Fine. We go to British Columbia together, I tear the Tri Cities apart, we come back with Wade.”

The ghost of a smile turned the corner’s of Vanessa’s lips. “That sounds right. I’m sure there’s a flight leaving in a few hours that we can be on.”

“Can’t do flights,” Logan said. Vanessa looked confused until he said, “Metal bones, remember?” Flying was the fastest way to get anywhere, but with Scott unwilling to help Logan, it meant he’d have to go through regular airport security, and there were no exceptions made for adamantium skeletons or claws. He knew this from experience. 

“Oh. Right. Then how—”

“We leave now and we drive until we need to sleep. Stop at a cheap motel for six hours, then get back on the road. Rinse, repeat, until we get to Wade.”

Vanessa considered that. “Isn’t it, like, a five day drive?”

“It’s not ideal, but—” Logan held his tongue before he said something he’d regret. He didn’t want to talk too badly of Scott, but he also wasn’t thinking nice thoughts about the man at the moment. “—but it’s the quickest option for me. Are you in?”

Slowly, Vanessa nodded. There was resolve written on her face, despite her swollen red eyes and tear-crusted cheeks. “Sounds like we’d better get going.”

Chapter Text

Day One:

The first few hours of their trip were easier than Logan expected, mostly because Vanessa was out like a light the moment the tires hit the interstate. He didn’t have to worry about small talk or uncomfortable questions or the fact that he and Vanessa were two sides of a love triangle that pointed to Wade. But once the sun came up, sending the first rays of early morning sunshine stabbing through the windows, Vanessa roused from her sleep. 

And it got awkward. Neither of them spoke to the other for at least an hour. Words were said, but all of them were Logan snarling curses at the other idiot drivers on the road. 

“Nice fucking blinker, jackass!” he shouted at the lifted Dodge Ram that had cut in front of him. It was 8:30 in the morning, they’d been driving for close to five hours already, and he was fighting the need to pull over and nap just twenty miles from the Ohio border. 

“Did you know that in howler monkeys, the males with the smallest genitals yell the loudest?” Vanessa said out of nowhere. Logan took his eyes off the road momentarily to shoot her a surprised look, unsure if she was talking about him. 

“What?”

“It’s a fact that Wade liked to quote. Lifted trucks really are just a giant sign that say, “I am insecure about my physical attributes and I’m going to make it everyone else's problem,” aren’t they?”

Logan looked forward at the idiot Dodge driver in front of him. Judging by the Gadsden flag bumper sticker and the very specific brand of political decal on the window, he thought that was a fair assessment. “He drives like he’s mad about something . May as well be that.”

There was a brief pause. The Dodge Ram, deciding Logan’s two car lengths between them were too close, slammed on his brakes at 80 miles an hour. Logan cursed and followed suit to avoid colliding with the dickstain’s trailer hitch. 

“I bet he thinks Bud Light is the beer to end all beers,” Vanessa said.

“Probably listens to Rush Limbaugh and believes him,” Logan added. Vanessa’s responding smile was small, but he had to admit it did him good to see an expression on her face that wasn’t the same soul-crushing sadness he had also felt since finding out that Wade was missing. 

“Probably thinks Reagan was the best president.”

“Probably thinks the moon landing was faked.”

“Probably believes there were WMDs in Iraq.”

“Bet he says “mutie” as an insult and means it,” Logan deadpanned. Vanessa barked a laugh, but immediately looked embarrassed. 

“Are regular humans allowed to laugh at that joke?”

Logan shrugged. “You have my permission. But maybe…just keep it in the Jeep.” His last word was punctuated by a wide yawn that he could not stifle. The Jeep drifted ever so slightly into the right lane, but he corrected quickly.

Vanessa gripped the handle above her head, her frown returning. “I really should have gotten my driver’s license. You don’t really need one in New York, though, and recently if I wanted to go anywhere outside the city I’d just get Wade to drive. We wouldn’t have to stop if you and I could swap when needed.”

We do enough swapping, Logan thought, but held his tongue. “I don’t need much sleep. Just a strong dark roast, and we can keep going a bit longer.”

“It would be nice if that were true, but that wasn’t the first time you’ve drifted. If we want to get to Wade, we need to get there in one piece.”

Logan thought about how he would get there in one piece regardless of any car accident, but Vanessa did not have a healing factor of any sort. What would be inconsequential to him could be devastating to her. He sighed, hating that she was right. He wanted to drive until the lines blurred and the sun dipped in the sky, but knew Vanessa had a point. He needed to stop for a bit. 

“There's a motel coming up in Hermitage. Not far out,” Vanessa offered, scrolling through the maps app on her phone.

It was as good an option as any. “We'll stop there, then."

The motel was bare bones. The name, King's Motel, implied royalty, but it was two queen beds that may or may not have been infested with bedbugs, peeling white paint on the walls, a piece of artwork that hadn't been updated since the '70s, and a desk and a chair. No TV or dresser, even. 

"Bet this feels like home for you, huh?" Vanessa said dryly as they surveyed the room. 

"I choose better motels than this," Logan answered, to which the woman with him laughed. 

"Keep telling yourself that."

They deposited their duffel bags on the desk (lest there actually were bedbugs in the room) and Logan took the bed furthest from their room window. Despite the sketchy state of the mattress and the overwhelming musty smell emanating from it, he was asleep in minutes. And of course, with no alcohol in his system to temper his mind, this sleep brought dreams with it. 

The dream started as dreams do, something soft and innocent. It was a repeat of Logan’s first jump, of Wade and him on the couch watching the 1930's Frankenstein on TV; Colin Clive screamed, “It’s alive!” as the monster rose. But something was wrong. It wasn’t the monster Logan was used to—it was Wade on the slab. It wasn’t Colin Clive as Doctor Frankenstein, but rather a faceless unknown that his mind told him was Ajax. And it wasn’t on TV, either; Logan was standing right there. Wade’s face was a horrifying blank, devoid of his usual charm. 

“What did you do to him?” Logan shouted at the faceless Ajax. There was no response, but not-Wade approached, his dead eyes never leaving Logan’s face. The mutant took a step back, knowing in the inherent way of dreams that he was in danger, but unwilling to take any steps to protect himself against Wade . 

“Wake up wake up wake up,” Logan chanted to himself, trying to will himself out of the nightmare. No such luck. Wade was there, a gun appearing in his hand, and he aimed it at Logan. His finger twitched on the trigger, ready to fire—

—and something hit Logan from behind. The mutant jerked awake on the bed, claws unsheathing and promptly shredding the foam pillow that had woken him. He sat up on the mattress, breathing hard as he tried to regain his bearings.

“Nightmare?” It was Vanessa. Logan looked across the room to see the woman sitting at the desk, eating a french fry. He felt heat rise to his face when he noticed how the woman was eyeing him warily. The state of the bed—twisted bedsheets with the occasional claw mark—told him he’d likely been thrashing in his sleep.

“You threw a pillow at me?” he asked. Vanessa shrugged. 

“I wanted to wake you from a distance; I didn’t want to risk vivisection to help.” She looked pointedly at the murdered pillow, laying in shreds on the bed and the floor. 

“I would have woken up. Eventually.”

Vanessa smirked and ate another french fry from a container on the desk. “See, that’s the key word. Eventually. I woke you now, sparing you from the rest of whatever was going on in there.” She motioned to Logan’s head. “It was good timing, too. Wouldn’t want your lunch getting cold.”

“Lunch…?”

Vanessa pointed to the nightstand by the bed, where a McDonald’s bag sat next a digital clock reading 1:39 pm. Logan’s stomach growled when the smell of fried fast food hit him and he grabbed it. Inside was a container of fries and a hamburger in a wrapper with “NO KETCHUP, NO TOMATO” written on it. It was his typical order. 

“How did you know—”

“You keep your receipts in your wallet. There were five of them there the last time we swapped, all with this exact order.”

Logan sighed and pulled a fry out of the bag. “Thank you.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

They sat in silence while Logan devoured the food. Halfway through the burger, his phone vibrated on the nightstand. 

“Oh, right. Your phone’s been going off for the last hour,” Vanessa said. “Someone really wants to get a hold of you.” The mutant stared at the phone, deciding if he wanted to answer it or not. There were only a handful of people it could be, and if it was the X-Men reaching out about another mission, he would rather not tell them why he was indisposed. Still, he reached over and grabbed the device, scrolling through his notifications to see that Jean had called him—twice—an hour ago, and then texted him half a dozen times in the last thirty minutes.

Scott told me about your soulmate. Are you okay? 

Then, twenty-five minutes ago: Are you going after him?

I hope you are. Fifteen minutes ago.

I want this for you, Logan. I wish we could help. Twelve minutes ago. 

You deserve happiness. Seven minutes ago.

I’m sorry. One minute ago. 

Logan stared at the messages, his stomach twisting. His expression must have soured, because Vanessa set the fry she had been eating back in the box. 

“Is it Jean?”

That got Logan’s attention. He should have expected Vanessa would have met Jean, or at least texted her, during one of his jumps, but the revelation had him nearly blind with rage. He took a few deep breaths to settle his temper, something he’d been practicing a lot in the last year. 

“Doesn’t matter who it is.” His tone was a very clear warning not to press it further. He set the phone on the bed as gently as he could, but his hand shook like he wanted to lob it out the window (because he very much did). It was stupid. It had been a decade and a half ago he and Jean had been anything. He was over her. He shouldn’t be so angry that she’d texted him about this. 

That’s not why you’re angry, a voice inside him spoke, and deep down Logan knew the voice was right. He glanced at Vanessa, who was watching him like one might watch a coiled viper, and he sighed. He owed her a modicum of an explanation. He gave her the best he could. 

“Sorry. There’s just…a lot to unpack there,” he said. 

“No, no. I shouldn’t have pried,” Vanessa said, her gaze flicking away. 

"Do you want to get going?"

"That depends. Have you slept enough?"

Logan wanted to immediately say yes, but paused to actually assess if he was well-rested. He'd had a little over four hours of sleep. He had done more on less in the past, and he felt good to drive. "Yeah, I have."

Vanessa didn't look like she believed him, but she must have been just as anxious to get to Wade as he was. "Okay. Just drive careful."

They drove for another seven-ish hours that first day, stopping in Joliet, Illinois for the night. The small talk was still awkward, but it kept Logan from feeling the exhaustion dragging at his metal bones, at least. It wasn't until they pulled into the parking lot of their (much nicer) hotel after ten at night that he really started to feel tired. Vanessa noticed.

"I hope you can get a full night's sleep. That four hours did nothing for you,” she said after they’d checked in.

Logan made a face. "Don't do much sleeping when sober. You saw why."

Vanessa frowned, thinking. "This place has a bar. If you need me to buy a bottle of cheap vodka for you to chug..."

Logan found himself laughing at that. "I can buy that myself, but thanks."

"You sure? I really have no idea what you even do for a job—"

"I get a stipend from the X-Men."

"Enough to drink on, but not enough to rent an apartment?" Vanessa joked. Logan realized in that moment that if anyone else had made such a joke, he would have threatened them with disembowelment. But somehow, his mind gave Vanessa a pass. 

"I don't like the idea of putting down roots anywhere," he explained, earning him yet another odd look from the woman. But she let it go without a comment. 

"Go beer bong your shitty alcohol, then. I'm heading up to the room." She took her bag and his and made her way through the lobby to the elevator. Logan took her advice and went to the bar. It was packed at this hour, and he had no desire to stay and rot on a barstool for any length of time among people. So he ordered three tumblers of whiskey, drank them in an offensively short amount of time, and made his way up to the room pleasantly buzzed. 

Vanessa was asleep when he got there, having taken the bed closest to the window. He could see even in the dimness how she was curled around a pillow, her arms gripping it like her life depended on it, and he knew exactly who the pillow was supposed to be substituting. 

He felt for her. He hated the universe in that moment, the way it had decided he should be by Wade's side instead of her, considering Logan was a noticeable downgrade in every respect. In the back of his mind, he wondered what would happen if—when—they found Wade. How would the interaction play out? Who would the other man choose? As Logan got into his bed, he told himself he wanted it to be Vanessa, but he knew deep down that wasn't true. 

His last thought before unconsciousness was that this whole soulmate deal fucking sucked. 

Day Two:

Logan and Vanessa woke up at an ungodly hour, taking the time to shower and snag something from the continental breakfast bar before hitting the road at 9 am. The drive once more started quiet, which Logan attributed to the early morning, but once they'd stopped for coffee—a dirty vanilla chai latte for Vanessa, and a Dead Eye for Logan—the chatter picked up.

"That smells delicious," Vanessa said sarcastically, eyeing the tall cup of drip coffee and espresso in the mutant's hand. 

"It gets the job done," Logan answered, taking a sip and hardly wincing when the bitterness hit his tongue. "I don't want to stop for long today. We should be able to reach Minnesota tonight if we time it right."

"Works for me."

And so the drive progressed. They talked (well, Vanessa talked; Logan listened and offered a few single-word answers, unaccustomed to long conversations) about the weather, the Jets and their progress into a decent team since the 2014 season, asshole drivers on the road, and all manner of harmless things. But it was a given that they'd eventually have to touch on sensitive topics, being in close proximity for hours on end. 

Logan had held his tongue as long as he could but finally, three hours into the second leg of the trip, something that had bugged the mutant from the beginning of his jumps tumbled out of his mouth. Before he could stop it, he was asking Vanessa, “Why didn’t you tell Wade about me? About how I jumped?”

Vanessa looked over at him, clearly surprised that he’d spoken more than one word, let alone asked such a question. “It wasn’t my place. If you wanted to find him, you would have."

"I get waiting for one swap, but I was back and forth for a whole year."

"Well, when it became apparent you wanted nothing to do with Wade—" Logan winced like she'd dumped rubbing alcohol on a fresh wound, and Vanessa noticed. She sighed and amended, "Sorry, that wasn't fair. I don't know what reasons you have for not showing up. But I did wait for weeks for you to appear at our door. Every time there was a knock, I expected it to be you.” 

She paused, as if waiting for Logan to say something: an explanation, a defense. When Logan stayed quiet, she continued, “I was all ready to break up with Wade after that second swap, but something kept me from following through. I didn’t want to be the one to end it, I guess. Let him decide who he wanted—it would be you, obviously, but I stupidly hoped. As you do. But you never came, and I—I couldn’t leave him. We were going to make it work, even if it killed me.”

She took a shaky breath, and when Logan looked over he could see tears in her eyes. “Why didn’t you ever come find him?” she asked softly. Directly.

A muscle twitched in the mutant’s jaw. It took him a moment to respond. There were many reasons. His lifespan, his nightmares, his fear of harming people. But ultimately, those were secondary arguments. The real reason he didn't want to acknowledge at the moment. 

“I’m dangerous,” he finally said. It was the most convincing point. “Even when I don’t want to be. And anything that happens, I'll survive it. I've outlived just about everyone I care about. I didn't want to outlive a soulmate, too, but I guess the universe had other plans.” There was a false note to his words, and Vanessa looked like she knew he was hiding something, but she had the good sense not to push further.

"That sounds lonely," she said. Logan shrugged. 

"I'm used to it."

Vanessa's responding look screamed, "Are you, though?" but she didn't voice it. Instead, she said, "A lot less idiots on the road today. You haven't called anyone a dick even once."

Logan smirked. "The day is young."

They continued, talking more like friends than the strangers they had been twenty-four hours ago. And, despite the circumstances that had thrown them together, Logan found himself relaxing around someone who wasn't an X-Man for the first time in a long time. 

Not roots, he told himself. And a voice whispered back, Not yet. 

He ignored it.

Chapter Text

Day Three:

Things began to go wrong on day three. It started fifteen minutes out from the hotel they’d  just left in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, when Vanessa reached into her purse for her passport. 

“Oh fuck, where is it?” she hissed, pawing in earnest through the bag. She continued to mutter curses without elaboration. 

“Everything alright?” Logan finally asked. Vanessa looked up, her face stricken. 

“I think I left my passport in the hotel room.”

Oh fuck was right. Logan sighed in irritation. He almost suggested Vanessa stay behind the border in Washington rather than turn back, but he knew that would go over like a lead balloon.  

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa said, and Logan’s anger ebbed a bit. 

“Call the hotel to make sure.” 

Vanessa did, and a short two minute call later it was confirmed that yes, her passport was sitting on the hotel room desk. Logan took the next exit and turned around. The whole fiasco lost them about thirty minutes, but it was only thirty minutes. It was nothing like the hour and a half they lost when the GPS had them take the Highway 83 exit near Bismarck, North Dakota, sending them north instead of west. And it took them almost an hour to realize the mistake.

“That sign said 140 miles to the Canadian border,” Vanessa said suddenly, sitting forward in her seat. “We shouldn’t be that close. We took a wrong turn somewhere.” Logan slammed on the brakes and pulled onto the shoulder, earning him the middle finger from the driver behind him. 

“This day is cursed,” Logan muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How far out of the way are we?”

“Seventy miles,” Vanessa answered as she adjusted the GPS on her phone. She threw her phone into her purse and rubbed her hands down her face. “How did I not notice?”

“This one’s not your fault,” Logan told her. “I blame the goddamned GPS.”

The woman in the passenger seat still looked miserable. “Doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Every hour we waste is another hour Weapon X is doing god knows what to Wade.” 

Logan couldn’t argue with that. 

“What do you think they’re doing to him?” Vanessa asked, voice cracking ever so slightly. 

The mutant had been doing his best not to think about what form of torture Wade was being subjected to, but his own fractured memories from his time with Weapon X came rushing back. “Nothing good.”

“You’re not supposed to say the quiet part.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“No, but…I don’t know. God, why did Wade have to go do that tough-it-on-my-own bullshit?” Vanessa punched the dashboard. “Why the hell do men act like this? Fucking selfish-ass lone wolves.”

Logan surprised himself by defending Wade, saying, “He did it because he didn’t want you to get hurt.” Vanessa, too, was equally shocked. “It sounds stupid. Of course you want to be there for him. But he wants to spare you the pain of watching him suffer. It looks selfish on the outside, but really, he was doing it for you.”

A sardonic smile turned Vanessa’s mouth upwards, even as a single tear rolled down her cheek. “All that for me. And I won’t even get him when this is all done.”

Logan didn’t have an answer to that, so he quietly turned the Jeep around for the second time that day and took them back the way they’d came. When they turned on the correct highway, the hours slipped by on the desolate North Dakota roads uneventfully. Their bad luck seemed to be at an end.

Logan should have known better than to entertain such fate-tempting thoughts, however, because eighteen miles out from Billings, Montana, the entire car shut off. It was nearing ten o’clock at night, and the temperatures were plummeting to sub-zero. 

“Shit shit shit.”

Vanessa didn’t say anything, but her expression looked strained. Logan guided the dead Jeep over to the non-existent, snow-covered shoulder in the pitch black, already knowing this wouldn’t be something he could fix quickly on the side of the road. He took a moment to compose himself before popping the hood. 

“I’ll be right back,” he told Vanessa, who nodded tightly. Then, after grabbing a flashlight from the emergency kit in the back, he braced himself and stepped out into the frigid Montana air. 

It took him all of five minutes to assess the issue: the battery was dead. But he’d replaced the battery only two months ago, which meant he’d either gotten a bad battery or the fucking alternator had kicked the bucket. Logan stared hard at the engine for a while longer, trying to breathe and keep calm. 

He failed. 

“Fuck!” he shouted, hurling the flashlight off into the brush. He heard it shatter against a rock and the light flickered out, leaving the Jeep in total darkness. Not even the moon was out that night; too many clouds threatening more snow. This was one more obstacle to getting to Wade. One more setback that meant they might be just that much too late. 

“Do you want me to call a tow truck?” Vanessa called from the Jeep. Logan turned to see her halfway out of the car, phone in hand. The fight left him all at once, replaced with crushing defeat. 

“Yeah. Yeah, do that.” Logan knew he would have zero luck finding the flashlight he’d destroyed, so he made his way back through the frozen blanket of snow to climb back into the driver’s seat. 

Vanessa called the tow truck, and they were given a response time between forty and seventy-five minutes. Then they sat there in near total darkness as the heat leeched out of the car. Logan wiped his hands on a rag he’d found in the emergency kit, but it did little except smear the engine grease over his hands. 

“I thought it was me who had jumped at first, y’know.” Vanessa broke the silence in a quiet voice. Logan started, surprised that she’d chosen to talk. He turned to look at her and noted her distant expression. 

“Then I showed up in your hotel room, alone. I held out hope on the second swap when I realized who you were, but…nothing. I didn’t feel the lure when I met your X-Men. Nothing electric, nothing that pointed to “You found your soulmate, Vanessa.” And it was then I realized Wade wasn’t mine.” 

“Why are you telling me this?” Logan asked. 

“Because I want you to know. I’m sorry.”

Logan was taken aback. “Vanessa, you have nothing to apologize for when it was me—”

“Shut up and let me get this out,” she said. Her voice gained strength, shaking with emotion. “I was—part of me still is, really—so goddamn angry. I don’t know what Gambit or Storm told you about that time you jumped in February, but I hated you and I told them as much. And god, how fucking awful is that? I should have been happy for you and Wade, but all I thought about was myself. So…I’m sorry. I know who Wade is going to choose, and I’m sorry that I still kinda hate you for it.”

Vanessa’s words hit Logan too close to home. He looked down at the rag in his hands, soaked in grease and engine oil. The full explanation may as well come out. “I know how you feel.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” Vanessa laughed bitterly. “I take that sorry back. I have to let Wade go. You are choosing to reject him. It’s not the same, and how fucking dare you suggest otherwise?”

“No, no. Not…not about Wade,” Logan mumbled. He hesitated before elaborating, wringing the rag in his hands while Vanessa glared out the window. Finally, he spoke again. “Jean and I used to be a thing.” 

Vanessa stayed quiet. She was still angry. Logan exhaled through his nose, uncomfortable with the fact that she was angry with him. That was uncharacteristic of the Wolverine. He didn’t normally care what people thought of him (or that’s what he told himself). He tossed the rag onto the floorboards and continued.

“Jean’d always had this on-again-off-again relationship with Scott, years ago. They were young, dumb, knew nothing of life yet. One night after a bad fight between them she told me she was over him for good. We got together, everything was great. And then I swapped places with Scott.” Logan stole a glance at Vanessa, looking for a reaction. Her face didn’t change, still looking despondently out into the Montana night, but something like understanding flickered in her eyes. 

“It wasn’t me jumping, wasn’t my soulmate on the other side, obviously,” Logan said. “Scott had jumped, kicked me out of my body and my relationship, just like that. I was angry with them for a long time. In all those years breaking up and getting back together they’d never felt the fucking lure, and the moment I enter the picture the universe decides to pair them together for good? Fan-fucking-tastic.”

Vanessa sighed, a defeated sound. She closed her eyes.  

“I’ve been in your place, Vanessa. And I have a plethora of reasons why I don’t want a soulmate. I’ll hurt them, I’ll outlive them, all that I told you. But in this case, especially; I shouldn’t have a right to Wade. It’s not fair to you.”

“No,” Vanessa said at last. “But life’s not fair, is it?”

“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” Logan agreed. A much less tense pause stretched between them. 

“One thing I can’t figure out,” Vanessa said after a bit, “is why Wade never jumped. I never met a friend of yours in his body.”

Logan couldn’t help but snicker. The reason wasn’t funny, not really; it was sad. Pathetic. “Probably no one the universe deemed “close enough” like that.”

Vanessa raised an eyebrow. “The X-Men? Scott? Jean? Ororo?” 

“We aren’t close anymore. The best the soulmate jump could get would be Tammy the bartender in Montreal, and that would’ve been a stretch.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why aren’t you close with them? I get Scott and Jean after all that, but everyone else seems like they want…” She must have noticed the look on his face—angry, pained—because her voice trailed off. Logan sighed. 

“Like I’ve said. People get hurt when they know me.”

Vanessa stared at him, and he thought that for once he’d gotten through to someone. Until she said, “That’s stupid.”

Logan glared. “I’m sorry?”

“You are lonely—and don’t tell me you’re used to it, I know better, and I’ve seen how you live—because you don’t want to hurt someone? That’s really it?” 

So maybe he hadn’t found someone to sympathize. “You wouldn’t understand,” he muttered. But Vanessa didn’t let it go this time.

“Metal claws and nightmares are one thing. I get wanting to spare a girlfriend or boyfriend that. But…look at your Jeep. You like it, don’t you?”

“So what?” 

“I don’t see any claw marks on it, and you have awful road rage,” Vanessa motioned to the pristine interior. “Lots of opportunity to cause some pretty bad damage. And yet…it’s untouched. Being aware you could be dangerous is a step.”

“It only takes one moment to forget, though,” Logan rebuffed her. “Remember the pillow?”

“Sure. But again, that was a nightmare. Have you forgotten recently while awake?”

The moment with Jubilee back in March came to mind, but no, Logan hadn’t forgotten even then. He’d been aware, he hadn’t hurt her. Vanessa looked smug in the front seat as she watched the journey play out on his face. 

“Stop being such a loner. You don’t have to be. Maybe you still don’t want Wade; whatever. I can’t change your mind. But your misery and loneliness are your own fucking doing. And, maybe you think you’re being selfless, but you’re really hurting people you won’t openly admit you care about.”

Vanessa had used his own words against him, and they hit home. Thankfully, he was saved from needing to respond by the tow truck pulling up beside them. But even so, as the burly cowboy driving the truck winched the Jeep onto the flatbed, Logan couldn’t get the thought that he might not need to keep people at an arm’s length from his mind. 

Day Four: 

The next day started with the Jeep getting a new battery at a mechanic in Billings (thankfully it had just been a bad battery and not the alternator), but the installation still ate up nearly the entire morning. By the time they got on the road it was eleven o’clock. Logan was anxious, Vanessa was anxious, and it looked like it wasn’t going to be an enjoyable-all-things-considered penultimate leg to their trip. 

Logan didn’t want that. They’d done a good job of keeping each other sane so far, and it couldn’t implode when they were so close. So, for the sake of his own sanity, the mutant broke out of his comfort zone and initiated the small talk. 

“What’s it like being a dancer?”

Vanessa, who had been mindlessly scrolling on her phone, looked up. “Oh, um. Good, I guess? Keeps you in shape, for one. And I like my coworkers. Well, most of them.”

“Except Eddie, right?”

Vanessa chuckled. “You found out about Eddie?” 

“Wade mentioned him a few times. He sounded like he really hated the guy.”

“He’s just an overconfident douche bag. Thinks any of the girls would be lucky to have him.”

“I know someone like that.”

“Who?” Vanessa asked. “Scott?”

That hadn’t been who Logan was thinking of, but hearing Vanessa say Scott’s name as the answer had the mutant laughing so hard he nearly had to pull over. When he finally reigned it in, he shook his head. “No, not Scott. He acts overconfident, but he’s got something to prove, too. Insecure about the leadership position Charles has put him in. We all know he’s being primed to take over Xavier’s when the time comes, and that fucking scares him. And all that insecurity manifests as a stick up his ass.”

Vanessa smiled softly. “You do like him.”

“Maybe.” Logan was loath to admit it. “He’s not a bad guy. We just have a history, and completely different personalities.”

The woman shook her head. “I wouldn’t go that far. Scott’s scared about hurting people or letting them down. Sounds a lot like you.”

Logan looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Sounds a lot like Wade, too.”

“Yes, actually,” Vanessa said. “You three should fuck.” There was no resentment or sarcasm in her tone; she said it straight-faced, as if it were the only logical outcome. The joke hit and he was laughing again. Vanessa joined him, and it was the most at-ease he’d felt since the start of this whole debacle just over four days ago. 

The rest of the drive passed in a similar comfortable manner, the two of them swapping stories of their respective professions. Vanessa spoke of Wade’s job as a mercenary in the dead pool at Sister Margaret’s as well, and Logan told her stories about his time with the X-Men. Despite the stress they were under, despite the need to get to the Tri Cities as soon as possible, the drive was as pleasant as it could be. Their goal was to make it to Spokane by the end of the day, leaving only a short drive to Coquitlam on day five. And then find Wade and this X Genesis outfit…somehow.

“Have we given any thought to how we’re going to find Ajax?” Vanessa asked as they were passing through the Idaho panhandle. 

“My plan was to see what abandoned places could house the project and start there,” Logan said, realizing as he said it just how weak of a plan it was. 

“We need an in. We need to figure out how to get them to come to us,” Vanessa said. A lightbulb went off in her head suddenly. “What if I faked a cancer diagnosis? They’d approach me, hopefully give me a number that wasn’t disconnected, and we could follow the trail from there.”

“That would be incredibly dangerous for you,” Logan said, already dismissing the idea. But Vanessa brushed his concerns aside.

“It can’t be you pretending to have cancer. I’m sure they know your face, considering the Detroit mission. And the whole “X-Man-but-not” thing. I’ve never met these people. They don’t know my face. I could convince them to take me to their headquarters or whatever, and you follow behind. It’s perfect.”

Logan worked his hands on the steering wheel. “It’s dangerous. Reckless, stupid…”

“Since when are you not reckless and stupid?” Vanessa threw at him. 

“I can afford to be. I can’t die. You, on the other hand…”

“Wade can die, too. I’m not sitting back and letting them experiment on him. This is our best bet, Logan, and you know it.”

Logan exhaled loudly. He knew it was the most obvious answer, but there had to be something else that wouldn’t put Vanessa at the center of the violence when the time came.

“We need to find Wade fast, Logan. It’s been a week since he left. Who knows what they’ve put him through in that time. I’m volunteering for this. Please, let me do what I can,” Vanessa pleaded with him. Logan looked over to see determination written on her face. He didn’t want to risk her, but there were no other halfway decent plans on the table at the moment.

“Okay,” he relented, however reluctantly. “And if I come up with an idea that doesn’t put you in danger, then we do that instead. Deal?”

“Deal.” Vanessa leaned back in her seat, arms crossed. “But unless this X Genesis address falls from the sky, posing as a potential victim is our best and only chance at finding Wade.”

Logan hated that she was right.

Chapter Text

End of December, 2015: 

They never did form a plan that didn’t involve endangering Vanessa, much to Logan’s chagrin. So, the moment they pulled into the Tri Cities, they put that plan into action. They figured Vanessa didn’t really need a cancer diagnosis from a medical professional. She just had to say she had one, and make sure that it landed on the right ears. Logan was never far behind her, a trucker hat pulled low over his face to obscure it from anyone who might recognize him. 

They bounced from dive bar to dive bar, with Vanessa telling the sad story of how her thyroid cancer had returned and metastasized after a partial thyroidectomy a year ago (a perfect cover story, considering the woman had a scar at the base of her throat from a cosmetic mole removal a couple years ago). This got her free shots from two sympathetic bartenders, a free beer from a third, and far too many men who offered their company as comfort. But no one fitting the description Wade had given Vanessa of the X Genesis recruiter showed up–that is, until halfway through their second day in Coquitlam. 

It was two in the afternoon, and four men had talked to Vanessa already. However, the man who approached her this time looked out of place in the bar with his pressed suit and dark, slicked back hair. Logan straightened in the seat he had taken across the bar, taking a sip from his IPA and trying to keep the glances to a minimum. This man fit the bill perfectly. He remained stiff around Vanessa, professional. Not hitting on her, then. And then he passed her a business card, and Logan caught the flash of the bar lights on the silver script across it. Finally. 

Vanessa was a convincing actress, smiling gratefully through crocodile tears. Or perhaps it wasn’t a fake smile at all, considering this was their way back to Wade. Logan couldn’t hear their conversation over the hum of the bar, but it was less than five minutes before the suit man was slinking out of the building. Vanessa waited a few more minutes, finishing her drink before striding nonchalantly over to Logan’s booth. 

“Bingo,” she said, sliding the business card his way as she took the seat across from him. The silver script on the card was easy to read in the dim light: 236-555-0514. “And he mentioned the name of the program was X Genesis.”

“Ajax?” Logan took another sip of his beer and picked up the card to examine it. They were almost to Wade.

“Didn’t name drop specifically, but mentioned his employer wanted to help people reach their full potential.”

“It sounds promising.”

“Want me to call?”

Logan set the card down, satisfied there was no hidden message on this one, either, and pushed it back over to Vanessa. “Give it an hour. You want to give the appearance that you thought it over at least a little bit.”

Vanessa nodded, tucking the card safely away in her purse. “I hope we aren’t too late.”

“We aren’t,” Logan said with more confidence than he felt. “If the subjects didn’t last a week, it would be harder to hide all the evidence. We’ll find Wade, and he’s gonna be alive.” For now. Logan pushed the thought aside. 

They waited the allotted hour before vacating the bar. Once in the Jeep, Vanessa called the number while Logan listened. He couldn’t make out what the low voice on the other end of the line was saying, but judging by Vanessa’s surprised expression, it wasn’t the recruiter. She looked over at him and mouthed, “ Ajax.”

Vindication flooded through Logan. Everything they’d assumed had been spot on. 

Take that, Scott, Logan thought. Vanessa said good-bye shortly after, putting all her emotion into a tearful, “Thank you. I’ll be there.” 

“He gave me an address, but it’s not the actual facility,” Vanessa said after hanging up. “It’s a pickup spot. I have to be there at 8 in the morning tomorrow, and they’ll take me to the facility from there.”

It reeked of illegal activity. “What was their excuse for that?” Logan wondered. 

“Something about how the government doesn’t want the cure for cancer to exist so they are protecting themselves. Man was a regular British villain—it’s not convincing at all, but they are preying on desperate people, I guess.” Vanessa sniffed. “Like Wade.” 

Before Logan could think, he was reaching across the center console to rest a hand on Vanessa’s shoulder reassuringly. “He’s almost home.”

Vanessa looked at his hand, the hint of a smile on her tear-streaked face. “Yeah. Almost home.”

And so it was that the next morning, early on Christmas Eve, Vanessa took a cab to the drop off location while Logan waited in the wings. He was agitated, hating putting her in harm’s way, and was determined not to let her out of his sight until absolutely necessary. He kept the Jeep parked close enough that he could keep an eye on her, but not so close that it would arouse suspicion. 

The X Genesis team arrived at 8 on the dot. The same suit man from yesterday ushered Vanessa into a black SUV with windows tinted so heavily there was no way of knowing who was inside. The vehicle pulled out into traffic and Login followed. It was hard to keep his distance, and his heart thudded like a war drum in his chest. If anything went wrong, he’d lose Vanessa, too. And, in a surprising twist, that thought was almost as unbearable as the thought of losing Wade.

The SUV drove through the city streets for a good ten minutes before pulling to a stop outside of a dilapidated warehouse with blacked-out windows. And if Logan had any doubts they were in the right place, they were assuaged all at once; there, beneath his breastbone, he could feel the barest hints of the soulmate lure, urging him onward. Wade was nearby. As much as he wanted to storm the warehouse before Vanessa or Wade could be harmed any further, driving past the warehouse or stopping outright would be too suspect for the X Genesis people to ignore. So he turned two blocks before the correct building, drove out of sight, and parked in an alley before booking it back to the warehouse. 

The SUV was gone when he returned, and there was no one outside but an apparent homeless man hunched over a fire smoldering in a trashcan. Logan would bet anything he was actually working for X Genesis and packing heat. He could engage now and barge in, but how many lives would the resulting slew of gunfire compromise? No, what he needed was to take out the sentry before he had the chance to sound the alarm. And thankfully, Logan didn’t exactly look like the refined type. He pulled his trucker hat lower, hunched inward, and shoved his hands in his pockets before approaching the man at the burning bin, 

“Keep movin’, asshole. This fire’s mine,” the sentry said. Logan saw his hand shift in his pocket and imagined the weapon concealed there. 

“Ain’tcha ever heard of sharing, bub?” Logan muttered, walking closer. The same smells from the Detroit hospital were strong now—formaldehyde, saline, antiseptic—and the soulmate lure was growing more intense.

“This isn’t kindergarten,” the sentry’s voice left no room for argument. “Now piss off.”

Logan was a few meters from him now. He pulled his hands out of his pockets, showing he was unarmed. “I just want some heat.”

“I’ll give you fucking heat,” the sentry hissed, pulling the gun from his pocket and taking aim at Logan. But the mutant was already closing the distance between them, ripping the man’s weapon from his hand before it could fire, then slamming the butt with brutal force into his temple. The sentry crumpled without so much as a whimper. Logan tossed the weapon aside and stepped over the body. He pushed open the rusty steel door to the warehouse, and what he saw stopped him in his tracks. 

The inside was a horror show that brought too many visceral memories to the surface. It was dirty, empty gurneys against the walls, flickering lights above, and a plastic curtained room straight ahead. There were sounds coming from behind the plastic—moans, screams—and the smell of fear and death in the air. Logan was momentarily pulled back in time, and he took a step back, overwhelmed. 

“Logan!” Vanessa. The mutant blinked the memories away to see two people in lab coats manhandling her onto a gurney. There were four others, armed and angry, coming towards him. His mind shifted into mission mode and he unsheathed his claws before launching at the would-be assailants. They opened fire, and the first volley knocked him back. Raucous laughter erupted from the assholes. 

“Not so tough filled with metal, are you?” one joked. But Logan’s wounds were already healing, and as the attacker approached, he stood and slashed his right set of claws across the fucker’s midsection. 

“My skeleton’s made of metal,” Logan spat, already moving onto the next assailant. He was among them now, limiting their ability to fire without hitting their teammates. In a matter of seconds, the last three lay in pieces on the floor. Logan looked up, seeking out Vanessa. He caught her fearful eye just as the two men in lab coats hurriedly rolled her behind the plastic. One of them pulled a Glock from a holster at his hip and fired off a shot that narrowly missed Logan’s left shoulder, before disappearing behind the flaps. 

“Oh, no you don’t,” he growled, and barreled through the plastic flaps. The room he found himself in was large and open, with the periphery sectioned off into different rooms using the same type of plastic that was covering the main entrance. He couldn’t see the faces of the people inside the rooms for the plastic but, while the lighting was dim from above, a few rooms were lit by blinding surgical lamps that cast silhouettes on the plastic. Wade had to be in one. The lure was even stronger now, buzzing like a live wire near his heart. There were already people moving in on him, but Logan wasn’t going to engage the mob until he knew Vanessa was safe. 

It was no matter to dispatch the two at her gurney; he beheaded one, gutted the other, and ripped through the restraints that kept Vanessa tied to the bed before the true hail of bullets began. She rolled off the bed and the two of them raced for the warehouse entrance.

“Regret being the bait yet?” he shouted over the popping of gunfire, shielding the woman with his body as he ushered her back to the anteroom—the safest place for her right now. Vanessa, bless her soul, wiped the fear from her face and set her jaw. There was blood from the gurney pushers on her face and shirt, but she appeared to be physically unharmed.

“I got us in. Now you get to slaughter every fucker in here,” she said in a determined voice. They were at the plastic separating the main room from the entrance. She turned and stared hard into his eyes. “Save Wade.” And then she darted behind the plastic, hugging the wall before vanishing from sight. 

With Vanessa safe, Logan turned to face the eight gun-toting X Genesis goons approaching.  They were no longer firing, but their weapons were all trained on him. He dropped low, claws out, ready to tear them all to shreds. One man in a lab coat at the front of the pack, flanked by a dark-haired woman built like a tank, tilted his head. 

“I’m flattered the Wolverine sought me out. It must mean I’m doing something right.” His voice was silky and British. Ajax? The woman at his side smirked. “No other X-Men, though? This must be personal. A one-man revenge mission. Too bad you’re outnumbered.”

“I don’t need numbers,” Logan bit out. “I just need to outlast you, and I think I’ll do just fine.”

“We’ll see,” Ajax said. He looked at the woman. “Angel, send him to hell.”

The woman, Angel, cracked her knuckles. “With pleasure.” She advanced, and Logan met her halfway. He wasn’t sure what he expected from the lone woman, but it wasn’t the sheer strength of her punch that he got. Her fist connected with his jaw and sent him flying. He hit the ground with a thud.

Mutant. Or, at the very least, a mutate. A product of Weapon X? It didn’t matter. Angel was coming at him, grinning. Logan jumped back to his feet, placing himself between the doorway and the X Genesis assholes. It was going to be less of the wipe-the-floor moment Logan had been anticipating, but he wasn’t one to back down from a fight. He braced himself for Angel’s next hit, but it never came. 

What came instead was the hot, intense shockwave of an explosion somewhere behind the small army. Everyone in the vicinity was knocked to the ground, and the pained screams of those who had been too close to the blast echoed through the main chamber, now consumed by flames. It took Logan a moment to stagger to his feet and regain his bearings. Angel and Ajax were gone by the time he was back on his feet, and none of the remaining assailants were in any condition to put up a fight. But if they were hurt, that meant—

Vanessa! Logan rushed back to the entrance to find her, but she met him there. Her lower arm and upper leg were seared from the heat, blisters already forming on the exposed skin. Behind her, the rusted door had been blown off its hinges, revealing the snowy ground and mid-morning Canadian sunlight.

“Can you get outside?” he called over the cacophony of the burning building and screams of the dying. Vanessa winced in pain but nodded. “Good. Wait for me out there; I have to find Wade.”

Vanessa didn’t argue, instead saluting with her good hand and limping to the door. She needed medical attention, but the explosion had to have reached Coquitlam’s emergency dispatch by now. Help was on its way for her. Assured she would be safe, Logan turned back to the flaming warehouse, raising an arm against the heat and pressing on. He could feel the barest hints of the soulmate lure still, telling him Wade was still alive. It was just a matter of reaching him.

The warehouse was quickly becoming structurally unsound, the groaning of the metal beams an eerie sound over the background crackling of flames. Twisted wreckage from the explosion divided the warehouse in half, and the only way to the rooms on the periphery was to the left. Logan started there, crawling over red-hot metal and pushing beams aside where he could, to reach the first of the plastic-curtained rooms. Empty . He tried the next and the next, feeling the soulmate lure growing fainter and fainter with each passing moment, as if Wade was getting further and further away. But Logan knew that wasn’t the case. Panic was rising quickly, but he squashed it down. He would get to Wade. 

In the fourth room, he found an unfortunate soul deceased on a gurney. Not Wade. But the soulmate lure was so faint as to be nonexistent. 

“Wade!” he finally shouted, his voice breaking off into a hacking cough as he sucked in the acrid smoke. “Wade, where are you?”

“Hello?” A voice, weak. Not Wade’s, but someone alive. Said voice came from the next room over. Logan tore through the half-melted plastic curtain to see an emaciated man with a mop of singed brown hair, strapped to an upended gurney. The flames were dangerously close to him, but he was so far unscathed. The man’s eyes pleaded with Logan, and it was at that moment the last of the soulmate lure vanished. Logan’s heart twisted violently in his chest.

No.  

He searched for it desperately, reaching out as far as he could. It didn’t matter, though. He was unable to detect even the faintest hint of it and that could only mean one thing in the context of the explosion. 

Wade was dead. This knowledge nearly brought Logan to his knees. They’d been too late, delayed just enough for Logan to feel the man’s life slip like sand between his fingers. Roaring agony of a kind he’d only felt a few times in his life threatened to drag him under. 

“Can you help me?” the survivor rasped, jerking Logan back to the warehouse from wherever the pain had sent him. He swallowed the lump in his throat. He could still save a life. Not Wade’s, but someone’s. 

“Yeah,” Logan said hoarsely. He forced himself to move, cutting the man free and hauling him to his feet. The stranger leaned heavily on Logan, but the mutant barely noticed; he must have weighed ninety pounds soaking wet in his current condition. The hospital gown he wore hung limply off his stick-thin frame. 

“How are we getting out of here?” the man asked, noting the flames on three sides and the solid cement wall behind them. Without a word, Logan deposited the X Genesis survivor against the wall furthest from the fire. The man sagged against it, watching the mutant with sunken eyes. Logan walked along the wall until he was nearly in the flames, where the cement would be weakest. The anguish of losing Wade bid him to destroy something, and what better target than a weakened wall between him and freedom? With a wordless yell, he unsheathed his claws and tore at the concrete, relishing in the satisfying way the adamantium chipped away at it. In a matter of seconds, he’d clawed a hole in the wall just big enough for a man to crawl through. 

“Come on,” Logan urged, stifling a cough from the smoke in his lungs. He sheathed his claws and held a hand out to the survivor. The man staggered forward on legs that barely held him up, falling against the mutant. 

“Thank you,” the survivor choked out, before crawling awkwardly through the hole. Logan followed, tumbling into the snow and sucking in lungfuls of fresh frozen air. But there was no time to rest; the blaze still raged, the warehouse was still an active danger, and there was no way the survivor was going to crawl to safety on his own. The mutant picked himself up and went to help the man. 

“You’re the Wolverine,” the man said breathlessly as Logan slung his arm over his shoulders. 

“Yup.”

“Where are the rest of the X-Men?”

An anger almost as intense as the flames they lurched away from nearly overtook Logan. Where were they? Where were they? Back in New York, too afraid of bureaucrats in lofty office buildings to do the right goddamn thing when Logan needed them most. But the survivor didn’t need to know all that. So instead, the mutant muttered, “Busy.”

There were first responders at the scene—a number of fire trucks spraying water on the flames, and ambulances tending to the wounded who had managed to escape. Logan was pleased to see the police cars there as well, and at least three minimally injured X Genesis individuals in custody. It didn’t look like Ajax or Angel were among them, however. 

There were also a handful of people being treated by the medics, most of whom looked like test subjects. All except for Vanessa, who caught his eye from where she was sitting while an EMT bandaged her arm. 

“Logan!” She made to stand, but winced when she put weight on her already-bandaged leg. Logan approached her and the medic attending to her with the man he’d rescued. 

“I have a survivor,” he said gruffly. “Needs immediate medical attention.” He watched Vanessa’s hopeful expression morph into one of crushing grief when she recognized that the survivor was not, in fact, Wade. There were suddenly three more EMTs at his side, helping the man onto a gurney. They made to wheel him to a waiting ambulance, but the man’s hand shot out and gripped the charred sleeve of Logan’s jacket. 

“Wait,” he rasped. “You called Wade’s name. Wade Wilson?”

“Yes!” Vanessa spoke for Logan, staring with wide eyes at the man. “Yes, Wade. Do you know him?”

“Knew him, yeah,” the man said, eyes darting to Vanessa. He swallowed thickly as the EMTs put an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. “He was a failure, like me. We ever did express our X genes, no matter what they did. You must be Vanessa.”

“Yes,” Vanessa said again. Logan could see the tears pooling in her eyes. 

“I’m David. He was a good guy, Wade. Spoke a lot about you. I’m sorry he didn’t make it out.” 

“Sir, we need to get you to the hospital,” one of the EMTs finally spoke up. David nodded and relaxed against the gurney, and they wheeled him into one of the ambulances. The slamming of the door made Logan flinch. He hated the finality of it, like a nail in a coffin—Wade’s coffin. It still felt so unbelievable that his soulmate was dead. 

“You should get checked out at the hospital, too,” another EMT told Vanessa, motioning to her now-bandaged burns. Vanessa shook her head, and swiped at the tears now spilling down her cheeks.

“No, I—I’ll be fine. Thank you,” she said. She looked away, and her expression was as lost as it had been seven nights ago in the kitchen of her apartment. Distant, unfocused. Logan sat beside her on the bumper of the ambulance, his shoulder touching hers, and watched the emergency personnel clean up the scene without absorbing it. 

“He’s really gone, isn’t he?” Vanessa said in a choked whisper. Logan nodded numbly. 

“I can’t…feel him. Or the lure, at least. Not anymore.”

Vanessa let her head drop to her hands. “Fuck.”

There were so many words Logan wanted to say, but they all amounted to how sorry he was for her loss (and his), and none of them seemed adequate. So they sat there in silence, watching as the police hauled the X Genesis/Weapon X members off one by one to a holding cell and the ambulances dwindled until only the one they sat on was left. Two police cars remained as well, and it didn’t take long for one of the officers to make his way over to where Logan and Vanessa sat. 

“Logan Howlett?” the cop asked. “Wolverine?”

Logan sighed and produced the official “X-Men Consultant” badge he kept on him. “That’s me.”

“We’re going to want your statement on all this.”

“‘Course you are.” Logan wanted to go drown himself in liquor, but that would have to wait.

“If you’ll accompany us down to the station, we can—”

“Good god,” Vanessa said, her voice harsh. The tears had stopped for now. She was in the anger stage of grief, it seemed. “It’s Christmas Eve and someone we care about is dead. Can’t this wait?”

“We need to brief the proper channels as soon as possible, unfortunately,” the cop said, managing to sound sympathetic.

“How long will it take?” Logan asked. 

“The initial debrief shouldn’t take long,” the cop said, and Logan didn’t miss the way he said “initial.” There would likely be more after this one. Scott’s worries about an international incident rang in his head. 

“Fine. My car’s nearby. We’ll follow you there,” Logan said, glancing at Vanessa. She sighed and nodded. 

The cop looked unsure. “She doesn’t need to come, if she’d rather—”

“I’m coming,” Vanessa bit out. The cop recognized her fragile mental state and decided not to press the issue further.

“We’ll see you there, then,” he said, and returned to his cruiser. 

“Guess that’s our cue to leave,” Vanessa mumbled.

“Yeah.” Logan didn’t make a move to go anywhere. “Can you walk?”

“I can hobble.”

Logan’s smirk was pained and fleeting. “Then we’d better get going.” He helped her off the bumper and together they made their way to where the Jeep was parked a few blocks away. And, even though it had just been the two of them for the past five days, without the third they’d come for, the world felt sorely incomplete. 

Chapter Text

Christmas, 2015: 

The “short” initial debrief took three hours and strained Logan to his breaking point. Since Vanessa had been intricately involved in the plan, her (much shorter) statement was taken as well. They were in separate rooms for the entire three hours and Logan had to wonder how she was faring. They’d both just lost Wade and neither of them was in a mood to be interrogated by the police. 

“So you found the Weapon X facility using just a defunct phone number on an otherwise unmarked business card?” the detective rephrased the same question for the fifth time. 

Logan ground his teeth. “Yes. It’s not hard—” he stopped short of telling the federal agent that it wasn’t hard to find Weapon X when those looking were committed, but the interrogator would likely think that a jab at the authorities and not Scott. “We had a hunch. It panned out.”

“We’re glad it did. We will let you know if your cooperation is needed further. Val Cooper has informed the X-Men in New York as well; I’m sure you should be expecting a call from your teammates regarding your job well done.”

“Well done?” Logan couldn’t stifle the derision in his words. Well done would imply they’d succeeded in their mission, and though lives had been saved, none of them were Wade’s. He’d managed to keep his and Wade’s soulmate status off the record, instead saying Vanessa was a friend and he was helping her out, but it very nearly slipped out of him at that moment. 

“We are sorry for your and Vanessa’s loss, of course,” the agent amended. “We will begin recovery of the victims shortly and will alert you if Wade Wilson is found among them. Unfortunately, the damage was extensive and recovery may take a while.”

Logan nodded, his anger easing just a bit. “What caused the explosion, do you know?” He was sure that, had that fateful explosion not occurred, he would be having a much different conversation with the detective, and Wade would be alive.

“The preliminary investigation our team completed revealed it was likely caused by a spark introduced to a hyperbaric chamber found within the facility,” the agent explained. “How that spark was introduced we may never know, but I assure you we have our best on it. Now, I’m sure you and Miss Carlysle don’t want to hang around here all day. You are free to go, but please keep your phone on. Just in case.”

“Sure,” Logan said, with every intention of turning it off once he left the preceinct. He stood and the agent stood as well, extending a card. 

“The families of those you rescued are indebted to you,” he said. “David Cunningham, the gentleman you personally escorted out of the building, wanted me to pass you his information in case you or Vanessa needed anything.”

Logan took the card and stared at it mutely. He didn’t resent the man from the warehouse, but he couldn’t help but think that, if he hadn’t stopped to help David, if that might have made all the difference in finding Wade. With a last nod at the agent, he exited the interrogation room to find Vanessa, looking every bit like the hell she’d been through, waiting for him. Her face was blank, devoid of any emotion. Logan imagined his looked much the same. 

“What now?” Vanessa asked. 

Logan opened his mouth to answer, but felt his phone start to vibrate in his pocket at that exact moment. With an irritated sigh, he pulled it out to see Scott’s name on the caller ID. He had half a mind to send the call to voicemail, but the other half wanted to hear what sorry excuse the other mutant had for the situation. 

“Let me take this,” he said. He put one arm around Vanessa’s waist so she could lean on him, and together they walked out into the frigid Christmas Eve air as Logan answered the call. 

“Scott.” Logan’s voice was cold, his words clipped. If Scott noticed his tone, he didn’t let on. 

“I wanted to congratulate you,” the X-Man said. “Val briefed us on the Weapon X facility takedown. You were right.”

“Of course I was right,” Logan bit out. 

“We were also informed that there were some survivors.” Scott’s voice was careful now. “Were any of them—”

“Not Wade,” Logan interrupted before the other mutant could finish, and dammit he couldn’t stop his voice from cracking. Vanessa’s grip on him tightened at the mention of Wade. It didn’t occur to Logan that Scott still didn’t know the name of his soulmate. All he could think of was how, if Scott had allowed the X-Men to help them to start with, Wade wouldn’t have been caught in the explosion. Everyone would have gotten out alive. And, judging by the loaded silence on the other end of the phone, Scott knew it as well. 

“You did good regardless, Logan. Charles wants me to let you know—”

It was too much. “Fuck off,” Logan snarled. “All of you can fuck. Off.” And he hung up the phone. His vision was tinged with red, and his skin felt hot despite the bitingly cold air just outside the precinct entrance. He wanted to unsheathe his claws, make someone feel the pain he was feeling now. Wade was dead and he didn’t have to be.

“Please tell me you didn’t mean that,” Vanessa said quietly at his side. Logan stared straight ahead. “It’s not their fault.”

“Like hell it’s not,” he finally managed. His voice shook with a barely controlled rage. Vanessa dropped her arm and shifted her stance so she was standing in front of him, favoring her right leg. Logan closed his eyes, sucked in a breath. “If it had been Jean who’d been taken—”

“Jean is an agent with the United Nations. Like it or not, that holds a little bit more weight than when a mercenary from New York goes missing,” Vanessa said. “Could they have saved Wade? Yeah. And it’s shit that their hands were tied. But how many more could have died if this became an international incident?” She was trying to be logical. Logan didn’t believe for a second she truly meant the words she was saying. So why was she saying them? “We have to move forward. And you aren’t going to cut off the closest people you have to family because they couldn’t help.”

Him. She was saying all these words for him. To reassure him. Logan looked down at her, saw the same pain he felt mirrored in her tear-filled eyes. “They aren’t the closest thing to family I have anymore. Haven’t been for a while.”

Vanessa’s brow furrowed with confusion. Logan continued, “And they sure as shit didn’t drop everything to help like you did. Yeah, you did it for Wade…but to do it, you had to stick around with me.” 

Understanding dawned on the woman. Before Logan could react she was throwing her good arm around him in a hug. The mutant hesitated only a second before returning it. 

“Merry fucking Christmas,” she said. 

Logan snorted, a bitter sound. “And good riddance to this shit-storm of a year.”

By the time they got back to their hotel, it was early afternoon. The skies outside were a lovely shade of blue, the sun shining brightly on last week’s snowfall. Colorful lights twinkled in windows and people on the streets smiled and greeted each other with holiday cheer. It was almost offensive to Logan. No one should be happy today. How could they be? Wade was dead . 

Vanessa clenched her eyes shut as she crossed the hotel room’s threshold ahead of Logan. “I don’t want to sit in here. It feels too empty.”

Logan knew what she meant. It had only ever been just them on this trip, but they were supposed to have Wade with them now. The entire world felt smaller, sadder, and darker than it should. 

“Every where’s gonna feel the same,” he said.

Vanessa shrugged. “Maybe. But we could at least be sitting somewhere with food.”

“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Me, neither.”

“How does Chinese sound?”

“Fucking awful, like everything else.”

“There’s a restaurant open four blocks away.”

“Do they have a bar?”

“Probably.”

“Let’s go.”

The two of them changed into non-charred clothes and Logan helped Vanessa hobble back down to the Jeep. She still leaned heavily on him, and he wondered if crutches might be a beneficial purchase. But when he suggested them, Vanessa said she could walk on her own, she just didn’t want to. Pain cut like a knife through his heart, and Logan didn’t bring it up again. 

The roads were deserted this late on Christmas Eve, but there were a few cars in the restaurant parking lot when they pulled in. Those few cars translated into three other parties in the restaurant proper—a family with three small kids, a middle-aged couple at a booth, and a lone man at the bar. Despite this, the interior was quiet enough to hear Wham’s “Last Christmas” playing for the 100th time over the radio. Logan and Vanessa took a seat, put in their orders, and sat in silence until the food came. 

“While they were still questioning you at the police station, I spoke with some of Wade’s friends from Sister Margaret’s,” Vanessa said after the waiter dropped off their entrees. She picked sullenly at her fried rice, having yet to take a bite. “There’s gonna be a memorial in a week. You should be there.”

Logan shifted in his seat, lifting his stare from the ginger beef before him to look at her. “I might know them, but they don’t know me.”

“They know you tried to save Wade,” Vanessa pointed out. “I told them as much. And that’s what matters.” 

Logan’s expression remained hesitant. He didn’t want to shoehorn himself into Wade’s circles when he hadn’t even had the courage to tell his soulmate he was there. Vanessa noticed this, and her expression turned pleading. “Please, Logan. I—I don’t want to be there alone.”

There it was. Somehow, in only truly knowing each other for a week, they’d become closer than just Wade’s soulmate and his girlfriend. Vanessa was like the younger sister he’d never had, taking his shit and giving it right back. No, they hadn’t known each other long, but Logan would have done anything for his soulmate’s bereaved girlfriend. And he supposed that included attending said soulmate’s memorial. 

“Yeah. I’ll try to be there,” he said. 

Vanessa’s shoulders slumped a bit. “Try?”

“I have to drive the Jeep back. If you’re flying, you’ll get to New York long before me.”

“Who said I was flying?” Vanessa asked.

“You want another five days of my road rage?”

“I would gladly take that over five hours in a tiny middle seat on a plane.”

Logan’s lip twitched up into the barest hint of a smile, and Vanessa returned it. “Well alright, then. I guess I’ll be there.”

They headed for home the next day. The drive back, in contrast to the anxious yet hopeful initial trip, was a somber affair. There was more silence, though not uncomfortable or awkward. Mournful, reverent. Occasionally Vanessa would bring up a memory with Wade, or some weird quirk of his—he liked My Little Pony and Hello Kitty, for one. That wasn’t a surprise to Logan, as he’d seen the colorful cartoon character boxers Wade wore to bed on occasion—granted, Logan had to be told who all those characters were, but it still wasn’t far-fetched for his soulmate. 

“I wished you’d gotten to know him better,” Vanessa said wistfully. “Your jumps were only a few hours at a time. There was so much you didn’t see…”

“It wasn’t mine to see,” was Logan’s answer, and that earned him a sharp and unexpected cuff on the shoulder. 

“Shut the fuck up. He’s dead, you don’t have to pretend like you’re coming between us anymore,” Vanessa said hotly. Her outburst shocked Logan. He had no idea she’d felt so strongly about the matter. The woman settled back down in her seat with a sigh. “It was yours to see, so stop saying it wasn’t. I may have been the first, but you were the destined. He deserved to be loved by you, and you deserved to love him .”

Logan swallowed thickly, suddenly overcome with emotion. “I did. Even in just those jumps. I…” He didn’t want to say it, because that would make it real. Hank’s words echoed in his mind: Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. “I loved him.”

The lines on the road blurred, but not with exhaustion. He blinked fast, hoping to quell the tears before they could fall. Fuck, when was the last time Logan had cried in his own body ? Vanessa must have noticed, but she didn’t mention anything about them. 

“I don’t hate you anymore,” she said. “But life’s still not fair.”

“No,” Logan said, clearing his throat. “Not fair at all.”

New Year’s Eve, 2015:

The memorial at Sister Margaret’s was not the sad affair the drive home had been. Wade would have liked that, Logan thought. Probably would have hated to see the way Vanessa and his soulmate sobbed in the Jeep all the way from Ohio to New York. A party was more his style, with early 2000’s pop bands blaring from the speakers and free shots at the bar named after a particular explicit act (they were sweet, made with Bailey’s, amaretto, and whipped cream). Someone showed up with a “pin the tail on Pinkie Pie” game, and despite Wade’s noticeable absence, the convivial atmosphere kept most of the tears at bay.

Logan felt very out of place amongst the memorial-goers. He knew all their faces, but they didn’t know his in the context of the memorial. They spoke to him as though he hadn’t been a part of this world—because he hadn’t, not really. He’d been a visitor in Vanessa’s body. It was hard not to slip up, reference things only Vanessa or Wade could have known, and he was pretty sure he failed a couple of times (but, thanks to the never-ending shots, no one seemed sober enough to notice). He stuck by Vanessa the whole night, letting her explain his presence. 

“He’s my dad’s third wife’s grandfather’s cousin twice removed,” Vanessa said to whoever asked, earning her confused looks from the patrons as they tried to map out the complicated relation in their inebriated minds. 

“You’re related to the Wolverine?” the bartender, Weasel, gasped when given the cover story. “And you never mentioned it to Wade?”

Vanessa paused, unsure how to answer, so Logan stepped in with a lie. “Some discretion was required. No one can really say they know me, for safety reasons. In fact, if anyone asks, I was never here tonight.”

“Oh yeah yeah, sure.” Weasel nonchalantly slid a stack of instant photos from the memorial featuring Logan out of sight. “Never here.”

Vanessa and Logan turned away from the bar, shots in hand. “He’s going to use you in promotional materials now, just so you know. If you want those photos to disappear…”

Logan shrugged. “Discretion my ass. He can keep them.”

“You’re okay with people thinking you frequent a dive bar in New York?” Vanessa said with a smirk. 

“What’s the difference between here and a dive bar in Montreal, really?”

“A very good point.” 

They tilted back their shots as the song changed from something by Aqua to “Gimme More” by Britney Spears. Vanessa looked thoughtful.

“You should stick around,” she said. 

Logan snorted. “Where?”

“New York. I know you said no roots, but—”

“I’m not forgiving Scott that easily.”

“No, not staying with the X-Men,” Vanessa said. Logan tilted his head, prompting her to elaborate. “I have an empty couch, which isn’t much, but I’m not looking forward to working doubles every day just to afford rent. And you know, it’s better than a different cheap motel every night…”

“Are you asking your father’s cousin ten times removed to sleep on your couch?”

“And pay rent,” Vanessa said, poking his shoulder with her finger. “Rent is the biggest thing, actually.”

Two weeks ago, Logan would have laughed the idea away. Now, though, something gave him pause. Wade probably wouldn’t be too happy about his soulmate fucking off into a lonely sunset and leaving Vanessa high and dry if he was around to have a say. Her life had been upended; his could go on as normal. But it didn’t have to. Maybe it was time for a change. 

“It was hard enough to get a work visa with the X-Men back in the day to stay at Xavier’s,” he mused. “Not sure how it would work to live somewhere else, especially now.”

Vanessa pretended to look unbothered. “Oh, well, it was just a thought—”

“But I think they fucking owe me something after all this. I’ll…” Was he really entertaining the idea of moving to New York for a woman he’d known for two weeks and wasn’t remotely interested in romantically? The answer was a resounding yes. If his time with her had shown him anything, it was that he’d been on his own for too long. “…I’ll see what they can do.”

The woman smirked and set her empty shot glass on the bar top. “I get why you were Wade’s favorite X-Man.”

Logan blinked, and his heart twisted painfully. “Was I really?”

Vanessa nodded, her expression melting from a happy smile to something bitterly sad. “That’s why I trusted the strange, angry man with claws when Wade needed help. I’ve never kept up with mutant news. I knew your name only, couldn’t pick you out in a crowd of one. But if Wade would have trusted you, and the universe trusted you, then I guess I could, too.”

Logan swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. It was a minute to midnight now, and the memorial goers had turned their eyes to the screens above the bar, where the Times Square ball was dropping. He turned back to Weasel and quickly ordered two more shots—an amaretto and Bailey’s shot for Vanessa, and a whiskey topped with whipped cream for him (he could only do so much amaretto). He passed Vanessa’s shot to her at thirty seconds to midnight and held up his own to her. 

“To Wade,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd.  

Vanessa clinked her shot glass with his. “To Wade.”

On the screens, the numbers flashed down: 3! 2! 1! Happy New Year! 

The two of them tipped their shots back, and the night went on without Wade, just like their lives would. 

Chapter Text

January, 2016:

“You’re locked out of your email?” Vanessa said with an amused expression from where she sat at the kitchen table. “I guess it makes sense that a long-lived mutant would struggle with technology. How old are you, really?”

Logan tossed his phone onto the couch cushion beside him, irritated that AOL wouldn’t let him into his damn account. “Does it matter?”

“Probably something outrageous,” Vanessa continued. “120? I know you fought in a bunch of wars.”

“Try 200.”

The woman blinked, taken off guard by the number. She opened her mouth, then closed it. 

“My email?” Logan prompted. 

“Right. Sorry, Gramps. I shouldn’t mock my elders.”

Logan rolled his eyes. It was ten days after the memorial, and with the pulling of some strings by Val Cooper (who knew the UN could grant visas to consulting X-Men?) the Wolverine was a conditional resident of New York. It required a permanent job at the X Mansion on his part, and when Charles had asked Logan if he was going to take the history teaching position, Logan had requested “groundskeeper” instead. X Genesis and the events in Coquitlam were a sore subject, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to interact with the X-Men on a regular basis just yet. At least, not Scott or Jean.

Jubilee visited him during his shifts when her schoolwork allowed. It was her final semester as a student at Xavier’s, so it wasn’t much time as she prepared to graduate. Regardless, Logan enjoyed her company when she was around. 

The rest of his time he spent at Vanessa’s, in her tiny one-bedroom apartment. She worked nights, he worked days, so it was rare they saw much of each other. This week night was one such rarity. 

“Can you help me or not?”

Vanessa sighed theatrically before picking up her mug of tea and moving to the couch. She set her mug on the end table and grabbed his phone from where it lay by the armrest. 

“Where’s the AOL app?” she asked, flicking through his phone in confusion. 

“The what?” 

“The app?” She stopped scrolling and fixed him with an exasperated look. “Don’t tell me you were typing “AOL Mail” into the browser and logging in every time?”

Logan returned her stare. “Is there something else I should be doing?”

“Good god,” Vanessa snickered. “First, we reset your password. Then I teach you how to use the fucking app.”

The process was time-consuming, but finally Vanessa got Logan’s email set up in the AOL Mail app. 

“Looks like you have something from Jubilee,” she said, handing the phone to Logan. The mutant tapped on the email, frowning as he read.

“It’s an invitation.”

“To what?”

“The fall semester academic awards. She made Honor Roll last term.”

Vanessa crossed her arms. “That sounds good.”

“It is.”

“Then why are you frowning?”

“Because I haven’t seen the X-Men much since…everything. I don’t know if I can just yet.”

Vanessa chewed the inside of her lip. “It’s for Jubilee, though, right? The one who adopted you?”

“I wouldn’t go that far—”

“I would. Kid adores you. Can’t you do this for her?”

Logan was silent for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. When he spoke, his voice shook with the familiar rage he felt surrounding Wade’s unnecessary death. “My soulmate is dead because they didn’t help.”

“This isn’t about them, Logan. This is about Jubilee. She had no say in that decision. Stand in a corner all night if you must, but it would do her good if you showed up to support her at her last academic awards ceremony, wouldn’t it?” Vanessa pressed. 

Logan looked down at the invitation on his phone, and smirked when he caught a certain line at the bottom. “It says I can bring a plus one. If I go to this thing, you’re coming with me.”

“I don’t know them—”

“Oh please. You spoke with Remy and Ororo in Detroit, on my second jump. I know you’ve met others since then.”

Vanessa looked unsure. “I’m not even a mutant.”

“You think the parents of these kids who’ll be in attendance are all mutants? There’ll be other humans there.” Logan leaned back on the couch. “That’s my condition. I’ll go for Jubilee, and so will you.”

“Fine,” Vanessa said, grabbing her tea and walking to the kitchen sink. “I’ll go as your emotional support human, since you seem to need one of those.”

Logan's expression was smug when he hit the “RSVP” button on the invite. The response sent immediately, but moments after a calendar reminder popped up on his phone, a repeating one that he had forgotten to turn off.

Bile rose in his throat at the notification. Had it really been 28 days since the December jump? Vanessa must have seen the change on his face, because she set her mug in the sink and came back over. 

“What happened?”

Logan clicked “okay” on the screen, dismissing the text box, and promptly disabled any further notifications in his calendar. “You don’t have to worry about swapping bodies with me, anymore,” he said, tone bitter. 

Vanessa looked at the 2016 Hello Kitty calendar on the wall (purchased in Wade’s memory), her eyes widening. “Oh shit, it would have been tomorrow, wouldn’t it?”

Logan’s only answer was to nod. Grief was a funny thing; you could be laughing one moment, but all it took was one tiny, inconsequential reminder of the person you were mourning to ruin the mood. And the mood was ruined. They went about the rest of the short night in silence, with Vanessa turning in to the bedroom ten minutes later. Logan stretched out on the couch soon after, and the ghost of Wade’s memory lingered in the shadows. 

Logan never jumped, of course, and that brought about a whole new wave of grief for both him and Vanessa. Even if the Canadian authorities didn't have a positive ID on a body, the lack of a jump was the final confirmation that Wade was dead. Logan once again waffled on going to the academic awards, but Vanessa threatened to enlist help from the X-Men to drag him there unwillingly if he backed out, and her demeanor told him she would follow through. So, ultimately, he went. 

The weather was clear the night of the event, a cold Saturday in January. Vanessa was in the bathroom getting ready, and Logan was flipping through channels on the TV. He paused briefly on an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, where an alien entity apparently took over the body of a helm officer. Too close to home. He shut the TV off. 

“Are you still not ready?” Vanessa said, emerging from the bathroom in a simple deep green long-sleeved cocktail dress. 

“I am ready,” Logan answered, to which Vanessa motioned to his jeans and unbuttoned flannel over a light undershirt. 

“That’s not ready. You need something nice with a collar.”

“This has a collar.”

Vanessa rolled her eyes. “You look like a lumberjack, Logan. This is a semi-formal event. You can’t just wear the same old flannel.”

“I’m not going to go out and buy a shirt that I’ll only wear once.”

“Use one of Wade’s.”

Logan snorted. “We are not the same size.”

The woman tilted her head, her eyes flicking up and down her roommate. “Of course you’re not. So if Wade’s shirt doesn’t fit, you don’t have to wear it. But if it does fit that’s what you’ll go in.”

Logan begrudgingly stood from the couch. “Fine,” he muttered. 

Vanessa beamed, vanished into the bedroom and returned with a starched ivory long sleeve button down. It was plain, and Logan could not for the life of him picture Wade in it. Vanessa must have seen his odd look, because she rolled her eyes. 

“He bought it for a job,” she explained. “Wade had to threaten a groomsman who wouldn’t leave the bride alone, and she paid for dramatics. He liked to pair it with eccentric ties.”

Logan hated that the shirt looked his size. Were he and Wade really that similar in body type? And yes, when he pulled the shirt on, the buttons over his chest strained only slightly. The long sleeves were uncomfortable around his wrists and the collar tight around his neck, but it fit better than he wanted.

Vanessa stepped back to appraise him. “Much nicer.”

“Feel like a damn clown,” Logan grumbled. He unbuttoned the top two buttons and rolled up the sleeves to his elbows, easing some of his discomfort.

“Now you look like the history professor all the girls are thirsting after,” Vanessa said with a laugh. 

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s definitely an improvement on the Al Borland vibe from before. Now maybe some slacks—”

“No.”

“Whatever.” Vanessa waved him off, deciding she’d done enough for the night. “It’s semi-formal, and most everyone there knows you. Jeans shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.”

They arrived just after five thirty at Xavier’s. Other invitees, mostly those parents who were supportive of their mutant children, were arriving. Logan caught sight of one father-uncle-male-relative in a green and red flannel and nudged Vanessa with his elbow. 

“I would not have been out of place.”

“Shove it,” Vanessa said playfully. “I saved you from looking like a bum. That guy would be so lucky to have such a conscientious roommate.”

The front entrance of the X Mansion was packed with guests and students milling about and chatting, and Logan shifted from one foot to the other when they entered. He saw other X-Men and faculty mingling and did his best to avoid their eyes. He knew he’d have to face some of them before the night was over, but he wasn’t here for them, and he would like to put off the small talk for as long as possible. 

“I told you he’d show up!” It was Jubilee’s voice carrying from one of the halls. Logan couldn’t deny he was elated to see her, but then he saw who was with her: Ororo, dressed in a white and gold cocktail dress with her hair pinned into a simple updo…

…and Jean. Her hair framed her face in auburn ringlets, and her navy floor-length dress gave her the appearance of floating across the foyer. His smile was all at once a little more forced. It looked like he was diving headfirst into his interactions with the X-Men, then. Vanessa must have felt him tense at her side, because she put a hand on his shoulder. 

“I’m so glad you made it!” Jubilee said, not noticing the change in his face. She wore a pink and yellow dress that fit her bubbly personality but looked out of place in the middle of a New York winter. 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Logan said. “Congratulations on making honor roll.” 

Jubilee beamed. “3.95. History was rough, but that’s because our teacher didn’t know what he was talking about. Not like he lived it or anything.” She winked at Logan, and it was a good-natured joke, but it still made him feel a certain way. Jubilee then turned to Vanessa. “Who’s this?”

Logan glanced at his plus one, then at Ororo and Jean. The invite hadn’t said to specify who was coming with him, just say that he was attending with someone else. They had no idea who he had brought, and in his negotiations with Val and Charles for a visa and a job, he had not mentioned the specifics of his living arrangements. None of the X-Men, then, had any idea that he’d started sleeping on the couch of his deceased soulmate’s girlfriend’s apartment. He cleared his throat.

“This, uh. This is…Vanessa. My roommate.”

Jean looked away, expression unreadable, and Ororo’s eyebrows shot to her forehead. Jubilee, not knowing the significance of the name, stuck out her hand.

“You must be a special kinda person to put up with Logan,” she said. Vanessa smiled and shook the teen’s hand.

“He is a special kind of hard to get along with, but we manage,” she answered, earning her a snicker from Jubilee and a venom-less glare from Logan. 

“Jubilee, aren’t those being honored tonight needed in the banquet hall?” Jean asked, and the teen’s eyes widened.

“Oh, whoops!” Jubilee leveled a finger at Logan. “You better stick around afterwards.”

“Wouldn’t dream of leavin’,” he answered. She smiled in response. 

“Good. It was nice to meet you, Vanessa!” the teen said as she left.

“And I think I’m going to go get something to drink,” Vanessa said. “Want anything, Logan?”

A bottle of Jack Daniel’s, the mutant thought. Jean’s mouth twitched ever so slightly, and he’d bet money that thought had been loud enough for her to pick up on in the crowded room. “Just…punch, I guess.”

“Sure,” Vanessa said. She gave his shoulder a squeeze before melting back into the crowd. And then it was just the three mutants, alone amongst the throng of students and families. 

“You’re rooming with Vanessa?” Ororo said, sipping at the punch in her hand. “That’s unexpected.”

“I wouldn’t say rooming. I’m on her couch. No room, really,” Logan said in a tight voice. 

Jean smiled softly. “Seems like she’s been good for you. I’ve lost track of the times we offered you a place here.”

“Yeah, well,” Logan made a wishy-washy gesture with his hand. “Vanessa and I both lost…” The tears that were suddenly budding in his eyes were unexpected. Shit. That wound was too fresh to speak on, and he was not going to break down in the entry hall of the X Mansion. “We have similar life experience.”

That earned him sympathetic looks from the women before him. He cleared his throat and looked away, willing Vanessa to return with the punch. “She’s like the little sister I never had.”

“Nothing more?” It was Ororo, and she was looking at Vanessa at the punch table out of the corner of her eye. Logan made a face.

“Oh god no.”

Jean laughed. “We are glad to see you here, Logan. We were worried about you.”

Logan bristled. A barbed retort about how nice it was that they were worried now, and not when he needed them a month ago, sat on his tongue, but he stopped himself. This was Jubilee’s night, and a night for the other students at Xavier’s. None of them needed an angry Wolverine starting shit in the foyer. Instead, he said, “Don’t be.”

Where the hell was Vanessa? Emotional support human his ass. How long did it take to get punch? Logan glanced back at the refreshment table by the staircase, noting the woman’s absence. She wasn’t making her way through the crowd that he could see, either. He frowned.

And it was then that a feeling formed in his chest. A feeling he never expected to feel again, like a rope had been tied around his heart and was tugging him forward to—

Oh shit. 

Jean was looking at him, her face confused. Had she heard that thought? Logan’s breath caught. He needed to find Vanessa. He needed to know if this was real. 

“Hey pote, your girl left in a hurry.” Remy appeared out of nowhere, pointing towards the exit. “Don’t know what you said to her but she didn’t look happy.”

“Fucking shit,” Logan hissed before remembering he was surrounded on all sides by middle school-aged children. But he didn’t bother to correct himself. Impossible.

“Logan, are you—” Ororo started, but he didn’t hear her finish. He was already moving towards the exit, pushing past kids and parents and faculty. The pull was nearly irresistible in light of the past month. There was no way . 

He burst out onto the front steps and caught sight of Vanessa retreating fast, her head looking left to right as though she was searching for something. 

“Vanessa!” Logan called, because he still couldn’t believe it wasn’t her. She didn’t turn. The mutant took off at a sprint after her, racing towards where the cars were parked further down the driveway. “Vanessa!”

Still no response. The lure had him like a fish on a line, reeling him in with no hope of breaking free. Not that Logan would have wanted to break free, because the impossible had happened. Wade had survived. 

And he’d jumped. 

“Wade!”

That got the other’s attention. Wade turned, and his eyes widened. Logan ground to a halt before him. 

“Wade—”

“Well, isn’t this a kick in the fucking nads!” Wade said, his voice loud and enraged. “You? It’s been the Wolverine this whole damn time?”

Logan held up his hands in a placating manner. “Look, I can explain—”

“Explain?” It was Vanessa’s face, but it was clearly not her behind those eyes. Wade was angry. And, Logan hated to admit, he had every right to be. “Shouldn’t that have happened eight chapters ago? God fuck!” He kicked at the gravel path, sending a hail of pebbles raining down on the manicured lawn. 

“I know you’re mad. You can be mad. But I’m just happy you’re alive,” Logan said in an attempt to calm the other man down. 

“I will stay mad, thank you,” Wade snarled. He glared over Logan’s shoulder, refusing to make eye contact. “So how long has it been going on? When did you decide your soulmate was the Justin Bieber to your Jennifer Lawrence?”

Logan blinked, confused by the reference. “It wasn’t like that, whatever that was.”

Wade’s gaze shifted back to him, white-hot and scathing. “Oh sure, sure. Wasn’t like that. ‘Course it wasn’t. You just jumped and never told your soulmate who you were? Or made any attempt to find me? Was the idea of being mine so unbearable—”

“I fucked up, I get that,” Logan said, still trying to get through to his soulmate. “But we came after you. We came to find you. And I felt you die. How are you alive?”

“We?”

The mutant sighed. “Your girlfriend is the one who made me come around. You went missing, and she willingly reached out to the one who would have ruined her life to find you. To bring you home safe. You died in that explosion in Coquitlam.” Now Logan was getting heated. The rage and pain were bubbling to the surface, the memories of the drive from Ohio to New York where he could hardly keep the Jeep in its lane raw in his mind. He could still feel the phantom pains of the lure blinking out in his chest. “So, I’m asking again. How the fuck are you still alive?”

The two glared at each other, and it was the first time Logan really noticed how pronounced the height difference between he and Vanessa was. 

“Would you believe I was dragged from the bridge by a Balrog and returned on Shadowfax?” Wade asked.

“No.”

“How about if the Horcrux in me was destroyed?”

“No.”

“Someone gripped me tight and raised me from perdition?”

Logan made an irritated noise. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because I don’t owe you anything!” Wade shouted, throwing up his hands. He began to pace back and forth in front of Logan. “You, who gave me the metaphorical finger when you realized what I was to you, deserve nothing. I have plans, and this really shoves a ∎∎∎, ∎∎∎, ∎∎∎∎∎ ∎∎∎∎ in my ∎∎∎.”

The mutant blinked. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

Wade pinched the bridge of his nose. “This fic has a Teen rating, doesn’t it? Fine, nothing explicit, then. Jumping now ruins all my fucking plans.”

“What plans?”

“Plans that don’t involve you,” the merc said, poking his finger at Logan. His expression briefly morphed into a look of surprise. “Is that my shirt?”

“What if it is?” Logan asked. 

In any other situation, the mutant was sure Wade would have made a thinly-veiled innuendo or an explicit sexual remark about Logan wearing the shirt. But it was his soulmate the merc was talking to, and he seemed to hate Logan. So instead Wade rolled his eyes in disgust and turned away. “I can’t do this right now. I’m leaving.”

“No, Wade, you’re not.”

“Oh, are you going to stop me?”

“Yes,” Logan said, crossing his arms. “Do you even know who you jumped into?”

Wade’s expression went blank, no doubt recalling the first name Logan had been calling after him. He looked at his hands, touched his chest, touched his hair. His eyes widened with dawning horror. “Into Vanessa? The person closest to you is my girlfriend?” 

“I could explain, if you would let me.” Logan stepped closer. “But it’s the middle of January, and I’m not letting you walk into the freezing night in heels and a dress when you won’t be around to suffer the consequences. The jump will end in a few hours, and you can go back to whatever plans you won’t tell me about. I don’t care what you think about me—” A bold faced lie, “—but you aren’t going to inadvertently hurt her.”

“As if I would hurt her,” Wade snarled, but his tone was that of a petulant child. He crossed his arms and tapped his foot, thinking. “Only a few hours?”

“That’s…my experience,” the mutant said.

The merc narrowed his eyes at Logan and let out a huff. “Fine. I’ll come back inside, but I’m not interacting with anyone.”

“You don’t have to. Find a room and lock yourself in there.” Logan couldn’t deny the way his heart twisted at Wade’s rejection. It was hard to remind himself that Wade, who he’d rejected for a year, was feeling that on a much larger scale. There was a gap to bridge, but they’d get there…eventually. 

Right?

They returned to the mansion proper, Logan somehow having to jog to keep up with Wade. The other man knew how to walk in high heels. The moment they reentered, Wade cut off through the crowd, going deeper into the mansion to wait out the jump. Logan sighed, piling irritation on top of the bone-deep hurt he felt. This was his doing, after all. He couldn’t expect Wade to be happy about the situation the mutant had put them in.

The awards ceremony started half an hour later, and though Logan tried hard to focus for Jubilee’s sake, his mind was on his soulmate. He could still feel Wade distantly in his chest. The X Mansion was huge, and he’d obviously gone very far away, because the lure was faint. It reminded him of back in the warehouse in Coquitlam, how it had dwindled to nothing…

Panic hit him like a freight train. Wade wasn’t at risk of dying this time, he was sure, but feeling only the barest hints of the lure had his breath racing and his heart pounding. He managed to sit still until Jubilee was off the stage and then he was bolting for the door, needing air. He burst out into the hall, sucking in deep breaths in an attempt to clear his head 

Wade’s fine. You can still feel him. It’s fine. 

Little by little the panic ebbed. It didn’t fully leave, but at least he wasn’t in fight or flight anymore. 

“Logan?” It was Jean. He turned to see her, worry etched on her face. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” the older mutant said lamely. He could lie to a lot of people, but with Jean it was near impossible with her telepathy. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do I ever want to talk about it?”

Her laugh in response put him at ease ever so slightly. “Well, no. But it seems like Vanessa isn’t around to help right now. Figured I could be the next best thing.”

And she would understand, wouldn’t she? Vanessa’s words and insistence on him staying close with the X-Men wormed into his mind. He didn’t have to be the outcast he made himself out to be. And Wade was alive. His kind-of-not-really-but-actually-yes-they-were team weren’t implicit in the man’s death. Who knew what had happened to his soulmate, but the fact remained he wasn’t dead. And he said as much. 

Jean’s face lit up with a surprised smile when he told her. “That’s a good thing!”

“Seeing as he hates me for not telling him…”

“Ah, so that’s why Vanessa is avoiding you. It’s not Vanessa.”

“Yup.”

Jean stepped forward and hugged Logan. The gesture was unexpected and Logan froze like a deer in the headlights. He hadn’t been this close to her in years. Nothing remained between them, no physical spark after all that had happened, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable with the touch. 

“You’ll both figure it out. He can’t stay mad forever, just like you couldn’t avoid him forever. The lure is a powerful thing,” she assured him. After a few more moments she released him from the hug. “It makes little things suddenly unimportant. I promise, this won’t last forever. And I’m so happy he’s alive.”

The creaking of the floorboards had Jean and Logan turning, and there standing in the hall was Vanessa. Not Wade in Vanessa’s body; her expression—utmost elation—was not one that Wade would have worn yet, and Logan couldn’t feel the lure anymore. He was grateful Jean had distracted him because feeling the lure blink out again as Wade’s jump ended would likely have sent him over the edge. 

“I’ll leave you two, then,” Jean said, and floated back to the ceremony. Vanessa waited for her to go before she was running across the floor, throwing her arms around Logan’s neck in a death grip.

“He’s alive,” she said, her voice thick with happy tears. “God, he’s alive. Can you believe it?”

“No,” Logan said truthfully. And then he was silent, because he had no more words to say. He was relieved, grateful, overjoyed, that Wade was alive, but the meeting had not gone as he would have wanted. Vanessa noticed. 

“You don’t sound happy.”

“I am, I promise. But I think Wade actually hates me.”

Vanessa sniffed and pulled away. “Impossible. He can be angry, but he doesn’t hate you.”

Logan thought back to Wade’s initial outburst when he realized who Logan was. “Debatable.”

“Did he tell you how he survived? Did he tell you anything?”

“He told me I could get fucked in many more words.”

Vanessa laughed. “He’ll come around. When we go see him, talk it out in person, he’ll come around.”

“I don’t think he’s going to come find me, truthfully.”

“Well, no,” Vanessa said. “But he at least told you where you could find him?”

Logan shook his head. “He said he had plans, and I would ruin them.” And then a realization dawned on him. “Vanessa, you were in his body. You saw what he was doing. You know his location; we can just go find him that way.”

Vanessa’s face slowly fell. “He really didn’t tell you anything, did he?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying. But it doesn’t matter, because you know where he is.”

The woman looked away. “It does matter, actually. I never told Wade about you. I owe Wade the same courtesy. If he doesn’t want to be found…”

Logan gave his roommate a look. “This is different. He’s not—”

“It’s not different, Logan,” Vanessa said. “I kept your secret. Now I have to keep Wade’s.”

“He could be in danger! The motherfucker went to X Genesis for cancer treatment, for crying out loud!”

“He’s…” Vanessa chewed her lip. “I can promise you his life isn’t at risk. Not even from the cancer. But I’m not telling you anything else. It’s not my place.”

Logan scrubbed an angry hand down his face. A number of rage-fueled responses came to mind, but he had the good sense not to voice any of them. So he stood there in silence, fuming. Vanessa sighed. 

“Can’t we just be happy that Wade’s alive for now?” she said in a quiet voice. 

It seemed like that was all Logan could do. The merc didn’t tell him his location, and Vanessa wasn’t going to give up that information. He would have to be comforted by the knowledge that Wade was back from the dead from a distance. And, as much as that hurt, he also didn't have a right to be mad. Because that’s what he had done for the entirety of 2015. 

“Yeah,” Logan sighed. “We can.”

Chapter Text

February, 2016:

Since the soulmate bond remained unfulfilled, it was not a matter of if Wade would jump a second time, but when. The literature said time between jumps could be anywhere from 28 to 31 days, so they had a ballpark of when the merc would appear again. Any time towards the middle of the month was fair game. Logan began anticipating the swap between Vanessa and Wade on Day 27, in much the same way that a movie-goer would anticipate the jump scares in a horror movie. His roommate took notice. 

“Wade is going to keep jumping unless we convince him to meet up with you,” she pointed out one day after catching Logan watching her intensely make toast, trying to decide if it was her or not (never mind that the lure was absent). 

“Well that’s never going to happen.” Logan couldn’t forget the rage in Wade’s expression from the night of the academic awards.

Vanessa set the knife she’d been buttering the bread with on the counter. “No, it will. It might take more work, sure, but what relationship is ever completely effortless?”

“He won’t even let me explain, Vanessa.”

“So woo him in other ways.”

“I’m sorry?”

“God, when was the last time you went on a date?” Vanessa asked. Logan was embarrassed to say that his mind drew a blank. 

“At least ten years,” he finally said. It was likely much longer; he hadn’t even had the chance to take Jean out back in the day. 

“Exactly my point. We’ve got some work to do,” Vanessa answered. “But we will make this work. I don’t want to swap bodies with one of you forever.”

Logan sighed. He didn’t have high hopes to climb out of the hole he’d dug himself, but for Vanessa’s sake he had to try to convince Wade, at least. “How do you suggest I…woo…him?”

“We know the jump will happen any day now. We just need to set you up on a date situation that Wade can’t get out of.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. A museum trip, a walk in the park…”

An advertisement Logan had seen a few days ago suddenly came to mind, and he sat up straight at the kitchen table. He had made a note of the colorful ad specifically because it reminded him of Wade. “Isn’t there that horse thing this weekend?”

Vanessa blinked. “Horse thing?”

“Horse-con or something? It’s that animated TV show he likes. The one based on toys.”

Her eyes widened. “Ponycon!”

“Yeah, that. Somewhere in Brooklyn Heights.”

His roommate was beaming. “This is perfect timing. He wanted to go, but with his diagnosis we never bought tickets. It might be hard to swing them now…”

Logan would stoop to some pretty low levels to get tickets if it meant keeping Wade around long enough to get over his (however justified) anger at the mutant. And the fact remained that Wade’s life had taken a sharp downturn since December—maybe the merc could have a single bright spot in the midst of what had to be a pretty awful time, and that would endear him to Logan. “I’ll get them. We just…don’t know what day he’ll get here.”

Vanessa picked up her toast and took a bite. “Guess we’re attending the whole weekend, then.”

And they did. Logan was able to get weekend passes to the con, though they were pricey. The first day of the con, 28 days since Wade’s first jump, was excruciating, and not just because Logan was surrounded by a side of the world he’d never spent any time in. He kept glancing at Vanessa, waiting for Wade to show up. He relaxed a bit on Day 29, though, somehow managing to enjoy the colorful prints in the artist’s alley and seeing excited fans dress up for the panels. 

It all seemed like Wade’s world, and Logan found himself wondering why he’d been paired with the merc to begin with, because this was nowhere near what he normally did. Granted, his “normal” was drinking himself under the table in bars, but they still seemed so different. 

Halfway through the day, he and Vanessa left the main exhibit hall to grab lunch at the venue’s cafe. Despite anticipating Wade to jump at any moment, he was still surprised him when he looked across the table in the midst of Vanessa explaining the difference between the generations of “My Little Pony.” He saw her easy-going expression had become one of shock and annoyance in the middle of his next question, and in the same moment, the lure materialized like a struck match beneath his breastbone. 

Here we go.

“Welcome back,” Logan said. He wondered if the four weeks between jumps had cooled Wade’s anger any.

“This isn’t going to end, is it? Like “Quantum Leap.” I’m Scott Bakula, jumping forever.” Wade sounded resigned. 

“Yup.” Logan took a sip of his Coke. “Or we could, y’know. Meet. That’d stop it.”

“So you do want me now, do you?” Wade made an irritated noise. “Well, I’ve still got plans, Peanut.”

Logan wasn’t sure if Wade giving him a nickname was a good thing or not. It seemed he was still fuming. “I never didn’t want you.”

“Sure,” Wade said with a dismissive hand wave. “And Taylor Swift’s Fearless isn’t the most-awarded country album of all time.” That earned him a blank stare from the mutant. “It is, for the record.”

“If you’d let me explain…”

“You’d what? Nothing will change the fact that you were jumping for a whole year without telling me. Hell, Vanessa was complicit. You’re both—”

“No.” Logan interrupted Wade with a glare, suddenly defensive. “She didn’t say anything because of me, and she hasn’t said anything about what you’re doing, either. If I had my way we would have paid you a visit 29 days ago, but we didn’t, because Vanessa is giving you the same courtesy she gave me. She’s caught between us, Wade, but none of it is her fault.”

Wade blinked, and then his expression took on a melancholy quality. “Yeah. Bet it sucks for her.” He looked away. “How…how is she?”

“Hanging in there,” Logan answered, because what else could he say? He would hazard a guess that all three of them were downright miserable in this situation. 

Wade nodded. “Has Eddie given her anymore trouble?”

Logan ran his right thumb over the knuckles of his left hand. “He won’t be bothering her, or any of the other girls, anymore. Knows better now. He understood it would be hard to serve drinks without hands .” 

In a shocking twist, that actually earned him a laugh from the merc. “Good. Fuck that guy.”

The atmosphere changed from overtly hostile to uncomfortable-but-not-quite-hateful in a heartbeat. That was an improvement, at least. Logan wished that Wade would let him explain himself, but he knew the moment he tried again the merc would stop listening. As it was, he would have taken “not listening” over Wade’s next comment.

“So are you two…” And here the merc made an obscene gesture with the fingers of both hands. His expression was blank but Logan could almost sense the conflicting underlying emotions. 

“Absolutely not,” Logan growled. “Vanessa reached out to me to find you. Losing you crushed her. And me, but you don’t care about that. The least I could do is help her with rent when we thought you had died.”

“Just a roommate?”

“Just a roommate.”

“Oh.” Wade cleared his throat. “Well, in that case, I’m leaving.”

“Sure you are,” Logan said, taking another sip of his Coke. The merc raised an eyebrow. 

“Excuse me? Are you going to stop me again? At some point this becomes kidnapping, and I will scream.”

The mutant shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d want to leave. Look around.”

Wade did, and his expression was one of mixed anger and surprise and, yes, a little bit of begrudging excitement when he realized where they were. “You are attending a con? The Wolverine is a nerd now?”

“For you.”

“You’re playing dirty.”

Logan sighed. “Look, Wade.” He set his empty Coke can on the table with a bit too much force. It crumpled ever so slightly in his grip. “We can pretend all we want that the universe didn’t pair us together. Fine, whatever, finish your plans and we’ll work on that later. But I also know your life went to shit in December. Figured you could use a break from everything. So you now have three hours to enjoy something and then you can go back to whatever it is that’s so important.”

Wade frowned, but it didn’t last. His eye was drawn over to the exhibit hall entrance, where an individual in a pink curly-haired pony costume was posing with other con-goers, and his bitter expression was replaced with longing. Finally, he sighed and leveled a finger at Logan. 

“Fine. I’ll play along for three hours. But I’m not turning over my Death Star plans, and I don’t want to hear excuses from you. You’ll ruin the ✨magic✨.”

It was as good as Logan could have hoped for, he guessed. “I have no idea what any of this is anyway, and Vanessa’s knowledge was limited. Consider me a captive audience.”

Wade honest-to-god grinned. “Careful there, Peanut. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

Logan did not. For the next three hours, Wade dragged him all over the exhibit hall, explaining the animated TV show “Friendship is Magic” in agonizing detail—the surprisingly intricate plot lines, the main characters who were known as the “Mane 6,” the recurring villains and their impact on the Mane 6. None of it mattered to Logan, really, but it was charming to see Wade be so animated. It almost felt like a jump from the last year, when the merc had no idea it was Logan beside him. It felt…right. 

The three hours flew by, and just before they reached the end of the hall, the jump ended. The sudden absence of the lure hit Logan hard and he audibly gasped, one hand gripping his chest as he stumbled ever so slightly. 

“Are you okay?” Vanessa, not Wade, asked, putting a hand just above his elbow to steady him. The mutant’s brow furrowed. He’d never had that reaction to the lure vanishing before, not in the twelve jumps he’d experienced, and not even in Coquitlam when he’d thought Wade had died. It felt like a fresh connection had been severed. It was actually, physically, painful. 

“Yeah, fine,” he said, brushing her off. The pain was already starting to ebb, but it had been a shock. “Don’t know what that was.”

Vanessa looked at him carefully. “How did it go?”

“I think it went as well as it could have. Wade seemed happy to have someone new to dump his knowledge on.”

His roommate smiled. “Well, it’s a start, yeah?” She linked her arm with his. “Do you want to come back tomorrow for the final day?”

"Fuck no,” Logan said with a snort. “I’ve had enough ponies for a while.”

“So fair,” Vanessa answered. Together they walked towards the venue’s entrance. Logan was quiet. Whatever pain he’d felt from the lure had disappeared entirely, and it was replaced by some budding emotion he wasn’t used to. Something he hadn’t felt in months, probably years.

It was hope. 

March, 2016:

Like clockwork, Wade jumped again 29 days later. There was no con or event catering to the merc’s specific tastes this time, so Logan and Vanessa opted to set him up for something more traditional: a dinner date. The restaurant they chose was a joint in Bushwick, a casual Mexican sit-down called Salsa n’ Spice. It seemed too cookie-cutter for Wade. 

"This is the place he likes to eat?” Logan said doubtfully, eyeing the colorful and chic interior when they arrived. It was complete with mass-produced canvas art prints on the walls and vibrantly tiled tabletops that were just a bit too perfect to not also be mass-produced—it screamed cheap and hackneyed. 

“I’m sure you heard him mention it. There’s a menu item that he loves here,” Vanessa explained as they were seated. “Ignore the decor. The food is what makes this place special.”

Logan could recall a number of times he’d heard the merc mention “salsa and spice,” but he’d never realized it was a restaurant. “I thought he just liked salsa with a lot of heat.” 

Vanessa snorted. “That, too. Now—” She folded her hands over the laminated menu the waiter had handed her. “—you are going to order for Wade.”

Logan frowned at his own menu. Mexican food wasn’t really his thing. “What does he like?”

“You tell me.”

The mutant blanched. “I don’t know him like you do.”

“No, but you’d better know this,” his roommate said. “I know you absorbed more than you are letting on during your jumps.”

“Yeah. But isn’t the point of a date to get to know someone?” Logan said with a frown. “Wouldn’t it be weird for me to know his order when he knows jack shit about me?”

“Normally. But, Logan, you were jumping for a year. If you didn’t learn anything about Wade in that time then of course he’s going to think you don’t really care about him,” Vanessa pointed out. “You need to show him you do. So order.” She tapped the menu in his hands. 

Now under pressure, Logan scanned the menu, growing increasingly sure that he was going to fail this test because he only knew what a handful of the items were . Sure, he knew of chile relleno, but he had no idea what was in it. At least he’d never heard Wade mention that, so that was likely out. Next were different types of tacos and burritos, both of which were served in every Mexican restaurant; he doubted this gentrified eatery did either exceptionally well. Those were out. 

But, eight or so lines down the entrée column, a word caught his eye. He recognized it only because he remembered a distinct “That’s real?” moment during one of his jumps: chimichangas . He had heard the word a number of times in the past, but because he never frequented restaurants that served them, he’d been surprised to find out that not only were they a real menu item, but his soulmate had an affinity for them. 

“Chicken chimichanga?” Logan finally guessed. 

Vanessa gave him an approving nod. “Good job. You’re not completely hopeless.”

“Sure I’m not,” he answered sarcastically. The waiter returned and he ordered for them, getting Wade his chicken chimichangas and ordering a shredded beef burrito for himself. And then they waited. 

There wasn’t an exact science to jumping, unfortunately; many studies had shown the number of days between jumps was important, but the actual time of day varied. Logan had found this out during his jumps—sometimes it was just after midnight, sometimes it was the middle of the day, sometimes it was later in the evening. Wade hadn’t jumped this particular Thursday so far, but that didn’t mean he was guaranteed to show up during the meal. This set up was nothing but guesswork and blind hope.

Thankfully, the universe threw him a bone. No sooner had their sizzling plates arrived at the table than the lure appeared, and Vanessa’s face took on that “Great, this again?” expression that Logan recognized. 

“This is getting old,” Wade said. “Like one of those TV shows that overstays its welcome. The first five seasons are great, but after that the plot becomes tedious.”

“The first five seasons weren’t great,” Logan said without thinking, then immediately winced. He knew exactly how that had sounded—that he had been just as unhappy jumping as Wade currently was. That wasn’t the case. Of course his time with Wade had been bliss. The problem came because he’d told himself he couldn’t have it.  “Look, that came out wrong—”

“Freudian slip,” Wade said coldly. 

“What I meant was—”

“I’m not listening,” the merc sang, childishly pressing his hands to the side of his head. 

Logan sighed. “Shut up and eat your chimichangas, then.” The merc hesitated before dropping his hands and tilting his head at the fried meal before him. 

“Did Vanessa tell you I liked them?” He looked like he was trying very hard not to be tempted by the food. 

“No,” Logan said. “I remembered that.” Barely. “Never knew what they were until now, though.”

“God’s deep-fried gift to mankind is what they are,” Wade answered. He lost the battle to ignore the food and dug in, hesitantly at first. Then the food hit his tongue and he was devouring the meal on his plate like a wild animal going at a fresh kill. When he spoke next, it was around a mouthful of food and it should not have been as endearing as it was. “So is this your plan, then? Court me like I’m some 19th century maiden and hope I forgive you?”

“This is nothing like that,” Logan said dryly. He raised an eyebrow. “They didn’t have chimichangas in the 1800s.”

“Oh, he jokes, too?” Wade swallowed his next mouthful and glared. “Then smack my ass and call me Shirley, take me right here, Daddy .”

Logan rolled his eyes. “You can’t hate me forever.”

The merc took an aggressive bite of deep fried tortilla. “Watch me.”

“It’s a waiting game,” the mutant continued. “Like water and stone. I just have to wait you out.”

“Water on stone? More like sandpaper on my asshole,” Wade grumbled. Logan couldn’t help but chuckle. Sure, he wished the merc would accept his apology right then and there, but Jean was right; this wouldn’t go on forever. And he thought he was beginning to see why the universe had paired him with Wade Winston Wilson. 

“What is so funny?” 

“The lady doth protest too much,” Logan answered, and took a sip of his water. That made Wade scowl harder, which only served to cement the mutant’s thought that his soulmate was fighting a losing battle against the lure.

“Alright, Shakespeare, thou crusty-ass batch of nature,” Wade bit out. They ate in silence for a while—Wade, obviously trying to keep from engaging with his soulmate, and Logan, knowing he wouldn’t have to wait long for the merc to grow tired of the silent treatment. His soulmate just didn’t know how to shut up.

“Okay, fine, you win,” Wade said in an exasperated tone halfway through his second chimichanga, dropping his fork on the plate with a clatter. “Why should I believe you changed your mind after a year of rejecting me? You get one chance to convince me. Make it good, Peanut.”

All the usual excuses sat on Logan’s tongue—he would hurt Wade, he’d outlive him. But the truest one, the one he’d kept from his roommate for nearly a week during their road trip, could be the only answer. 

“Vanessa,” Logan said simply. Wade blinked, clearly not expecting that response. 

“My girlfriend? You didn’t say anything to me because you wanted her—”

“No,” the mutant said flatly. “She was happy with you. You were happy with her. What right did I have to fuck that all up? For either of you?”

“So you just decided, on your own, to reject me?”

“I am not saying it was the right thing to do. It absolutely wasn’t, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. I didn’t reject you because I didn’t want you.” Logan paused before adding, “Because I did. And still do. But I’ve been in Vanessa’s shoes, and it’s the worst feeling.”

“Was it Jean and Scott?” Wade asked. Logan started, shocked Wade knew that. He leveled a stony look at the merc. 

“How—”

“Lucky guess. Those celebrity gossip mags speculated wildly about your relationship years ago. Don’t pretend like you didn’t read that shit,” Wade said with a shrug, going back to his meal. 

“The X-Men aren’t celebrities.”

“Tell that to TMZ and People Magazine. Maybe not Avengers-level celebs, but you have a following. And some people really get their rocks off speculating on the private lives of public figures, spandex-clad mutants included.” The merc shoveled a large bite into his mouth, but continued talking. “You should have read the article they did comparing you, Scott, and Jean to the Twilight love triangle. Man, you were the OG Rob Pats and Taylor Lautner.”

Logan only knew any of those words because of Jubilee. And he knew enough to deadpan, “Whose team were you on?”

Wade smirked. “Team Wolvie, obviously. And I’ve got the old t-shirt to prove it.”

Logan waited for the “though that was before I knew you were a dick,” but it never came. Wade had flirted back. Was this…progress?

“So you know I didn’t reject you because of you. Can you tell me where you are and we can put an end to—” Logan motioned to Wade in Vanessa’s body. “—this?”

“Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” was the merc’s answer. “And I’m not quite fond enough.”

Logan wanted to punch something. “Please, whatever you’re planning, just tell me. Maybe I can help.”

“Oh no, Peanut, though I do appreciate the offer. I may not be putting a band together, but I am on a mission from God and she told me you just have to be patient.”

“I don’t do patience.”

Wade pressed a hand to his chest. “And yet you ignored me for a year. Sounds pretty patient.”

Logan rubbed a hand down his face. “Think of Vanessa. She’s caught in the midst of this.”

“I’m not saying never,” the merc said carefully. “I won’t put her through that. But I am saying not right now.” He finished off his plate of fried Mexican food, and eyed the half-eaten burrito on Logan’s plate. “You gonna finish that?” 

The mutant rolled his eyes and pushed the plate to Wade. “It better be soon.”

“Well, we hope, but the way things are going who knows? You had your chance to make your move. Now,” Wade leaned over the burrito, “you just have to trust that I’ll find you when I’m ready.”

It was not the satisfying answer that Logan wanted, but it was only fair. The mutant had had his chance—a whole year of chances, in fact—and he’d squandered it. Logan did wonder what the merc was getting up to, but the ball was squarely in Wade’s court now and he knew there was nothing he could really do to change that. So he sighed, nodded, and proceeded to order the most tequila-filled drink he could find on the menu. 

Eventually the jump ended, and despite the alcohol, the vanishing of the lure was sharper than before. 

Chapter Text

April, 2016:

Since Wade had made it explicitly clear he would find his soulmate when he was ready and not a moment sooner, there didn’t seem to be anything Logan or Vanessa could do to change his mind. It sucked, but they said they understood. 

Though Vanessa was far more understanding than Logan was. 

“It’s fucking ridiculous that he can just keep his distance,” Logan ranted one night in April. Vanessa leaned against the hallway wall, filing her nails and looking nonplussed. 

“You’re a hypocrite and you know it,” she said fondly. 

“I had a reason—”

“So does Wade.”

“Then what is it?”

“I can’t say.”

“Fuck that.” Logan stood in the living room and unsheathed his claws, glaring at the couch. It was an inanimate object that he could easily replace, a perfect target for his rage. The emory board paused in Vanessa’s hand and she frowned at him.

“Don’t destroy my couch,” she said. “Go tear apart the garbage bags on the sidewalk if you need to shred something. Or maybe I should get you a scratching post like a responsible cat owner?”

The mutant growled but sheathed his claws. “I just want to know what he’s getting up to. Is it dangerous?”

“It’s nothing that will kill him,” Vanessa said cryptically.

“Oh good, so when he jumps it also won’t kill you?”

“No, it won’t.” Vanessa appraised her nails and, satisfied with their shape, tucked the emory board in her pocket. 

“So what do we do in the meantime? Just wait for when he deems the time is right?”

“I think it’s safe to say he likes the dates. We keep doing those. Maybe the museum this time. Have you been to it recently? I hear they have some pretty cool new exhibits. Maybe you’ll see something from your childhood there.” She seemed so blasé about the whole situation, and it drove Logan crazy. There was a whole other side to this situation that he wasn’t privy to and it was infuriating. 

“Great. So we keep doing what we’re doing.” Logan dropped back onto the couch, now less angry and more resigned. 

“If you really want something to do, you can teach me to drive,” Vanessa said. When the mutant gave her a disbelieving look, she added, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I really should know. It would make our next roadtrip that much easier.”

Another roadtrip? “So he is in danger!”

His roommate shook her head. “I did not say that. It would be a just in case, like, y’know…the apocalypse happening or something. Good luck catching a cab when the zombies attack, right?”

Logan eyed her suspiciously, and Vanessa held up her hands, declaring her innocence. Finally, he sighed. It would be a distraction from wondering what trouble Wade was getting into. “You really want to learn how to drive?”

“Yes.”

“In case of…zombies?”

“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

“And this has nothing to do with what Wade may or may not be doing?”

“Promise. Scout’s honor.” Vanessa held three fingers to her forehead in a salute. 

So Logan agreed. As Vanessa had pointed out in their first week together, he was rather fond of his Jeep and wanted to keep it in one piece. It was a manual transmission, but Vanessa said she was a fast learner, so hopefully the car wouldn’t suffer too painfully. Whenever they had a free day together, they’d make their way over to a deserted K Mart parking lot a good distance from the crazy city drivers to practice. Their first session went less than stellar. 

Logan, who had been driving manual vehicles since their invention, considered it a testament to his anger management that he was able to do most of the teaching calmly.

“Your foot’s on the clutch?” he asked for what felt like the five hundredth time. 

Vanessa nodded. “Yup.”

“Car’s in neutral?”

His roommate moved the shifter into the middle position. “Yup.”

“Okay, so start the car, keep your foot on the clutch, disengage the handbrake, and when you start rolling forward, shift into first gear.”

Vanessa attempted to do as she was told, but the car stalled almost instantly and came to an abrupt halt, throwing them against their seatbelts even at such a low speed. She made a frustrated noise. 

“What did I do now?” It was her sixth or seventh attempt to get the car moving. Logan glanced at the gear shift. 

“You shifted into fifth from neutral.” He took a breath, able to recognize that his anger would only exacerbate an already frustrating situation. “It happens. You just have to remember where each gear is. It takes practice and muscle memory.”

Vanessa looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “This is the most patient you have ever been.”

Logan shrugged. “You’re learning. I can’t expect you to know everything immediately.”

“You’d make a great teacher.”

The mutant scowled, catching her drift. “Too bad I’m a groundskeeper.”

Vanessa smirked and refocused her attention on the car, reengaging the hand brake and resetting the gear shift. “You don’t have to be. They’d be lucky to have a history teacher like you.”

“Just try again,” Logan muttered. Vanessa laughed but did as she was told. And gradually, she got better. Time flew by with the new distraction, and though they didn’t exactly lose track of the days between jumps—Vanessa and Logan both requested Day 29 off from their respective jobs, so it was hard to forget— they grew lax on the times. Wade’s jumps had always been in the afternoon, never so early in the morning. So, when Day 29 rolled around again, they thought they had time to get a driving lesson in. 

They did not. 

Vanessa had only just slid behind the wheel for her sixth driving lesson when the lure materialized beneath Logan’s sternum and her expression changed. It wasn’t Wade’s normal annoyance, but it wasn’t a positive emotion, either; he looked stressed. 

“No no no,” the merc hissed, and angrily slammed the steering wheel with his palms. 

“What’s your problem?” Logan’s hand was halfway over the center console, his attempt at comfort, before he thought twice about touching Wade without permission.

“I have to go back,” Wade said, not looking at Logan. He reached for the keys to start the ignition, but stopped and instead pounded a fist on the dashboard. “I am on a timeframe. This wasn’t supposed to happen until later!”

Logan’s heart immediately started to pound. What had Wade been doing? And what had he inadvertently gotten Vanessa into? “Okay, where were you before you jumped?”

“Not here!” Wade moaned.

“That’s obvious,” Logan bit out. “Where. Were. You? If you were in the middle of something…”

“No,” Wade slammed his head back against the headrest before sighing, his whole body going limp. “Not in the middle of something. But something was going to start, and if everything went as planned, I—” He stopped, a number of emotions playing out across his face too fast for Logan to read. “—well, that opportunity is fucking ruined. Guess you’ll have to wait a bit longer for me to find you.”

The mutant’s heart twisted annoyingly. “Today was the day of whatever you planned.”

“Yeah.”

“You planned it for the day of a jump?”

Wade threw Logan an annoyed look. “I didn’t pick the date, Peanut. I just had to prepare for it. I thought I could kick ass in the morning and this would all be over by the evening. But the universe had other fucking ideas!” He shouted the last part at the ceiling. 

Logan looked away, thinking. This could all have been over today, but maybe…maybe there was still a chance. 

“Tell me where we need to go. Whoever you need to kill, I can take care of them.”

“We won’t get there in time,” Wade said bitterly. “Unless you suddenly manifested Nightcrawler’s teleportation abilities, this chance at justice is fucked.”

Logan looked out the window, stewing. “Vanessa’s not in danger, is she?”

Wade shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that.” 

“Good.” Logan was glad, at least, that no one was in immediate danger. But this was exactly why Wade needed to find them and end the jumps as soon as possible. Why he was resisting when he no longer seemed angry at the mutant was a mystery. Did his use of the word “justice” offer a clue? Justice for who? Himself? And it hit the mutant then.

“You’re going after Ajax, aren’t you?”

Wade gave him a side eye and huffed. “I’m good on dish soap for the time being. And actually, I prefer Dawn to Ajax—I feel like it gets grease out better.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“But there’s also Palmolive, which I think smells the best—”

“Wade.”

“I still don’t own you an explanation, Peanut,” Wade said. Okay, so maybe he was still a bit mad. That didn’t change the fact that Logan could help. And he said as much. 

“If it is Ajax and Weapon X, I know we could get the rest of the X-Men involved this time,” the mutant pressed. “You don’t have to do this on your own.”

Wade looked uncomfortable. He waited a beat before responding. “Now, Mrs. Meyers is just down-right useless in terms of dish soap. Couldn’t remove tomato stains from Tupperware; forget cutting through grease.”

“Jesus christ.” Logan took a deep breath, trying to center himself. This was downright stupid. Wade had the option to remedy this whole situation, and it was infuriating that he was unwilling to do that. And it was baffling that Vanessa, who was easily the one suffering the most in all this, enabled him. “You don’t owe me anything, sure. But I’m trying to fix what I fucked up. Why won’t you let me help?”

The merc chewed his lip. “Okay, fine. You want the truth? Well-intentioned or not, you rejected me once. I’m just making sure that doesn’t happen again.”

Logan blanched. “Why would I reject you again?”

Wade very obviously looked Logan up and down. “Have you seen yourself? You have “heartbreaker” written all over that 6’2” lumberjack frame.”

None of this made sense. Was Wade thinking he wasn’t worthy of Logan? When it was Logan who had initially thought he didn’t deserve Wade because of a whole host of reasons? What a fucking comedy. It would be funny if it wasn’t so frustrating. He leaned over the center console, as close to Wade-as-Vanessa as he dared to get without crossing a boundary. The electricity of the lure crackled between them, which was an odd feeling. Logan had no romantic attraction to Vanessa, but the person in her body set him on fire in the best way. And, the way Wade’s pupils dilated, Logan knew the sparks between them were mutually hard to ignore.

“Forget all of that. We both fucked up. The least we can do is end the jumps so Vanessa isn’t caught in the middle and work this out like adults.”

Wade’s smile did not reach his eyes. “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Fucking jokes,” Logan muttered, sitting back in his seat. Outwardly, he was angry. Inwardly, everything hurt. He didn’t understand why the lure, which had never bothered him the whole year he was jumping, was causing him physical pain now, but he was over it. If Wade was in the same agony as him, he didn’t show it.

“It looks like we still have a good two hours and fifty minutes left of this jump,” the merc broke the silence, looking at the clock on the Jeep’s dashboard. 

“And?”

“I don’t really want to spend it in a K Mart parking lot. The fuck are you doing here anyway?”

“Vanessa wanted to learn to drive. I was teaching her.” 

“Well that’s nice of you. I know how to drive, though. We don’t need to be here.”

Logan agreed. He and Vanessa had decided to keep the dates up, and if no one was in danger and Wade wasn’t going to change his mind, the least they could do was something Wade wanted. Maybe it would take Logan’s mind off of the black hole ripping his chest apart. 

“What do you want to do?” he asked. 

Wade thought about that. “How about a movie?”

And that was how they ended up on the couch back in the apartment, watching Bandits in a cruel facsimile of Logan’s first jump. The movie wasn’t one he’d seen before, and he found his mind wandering. He was sitting by the armrest, as far from Wade as he could get without being obvious. It was strange to feel such a pull to the man next to him in Vanessa’s body while simultaneously being completely turned off by the fact that it was Vanessa’s body. She was a gorgeous woman, but he could acknowledge that without feeling any sort of attraction to her. She was his friend, his emotional support human, and it didn’t go beyond that.

It was such a strange position, to care so much about someone who could rightly be termed his romantic competition (even if it wasn’t true competition; it was all but a given Wade would choose Logan). But as they sat there, watching Cate Blanchett make out with Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis, he wondered if there might be another way out of their shared predicament. He didn’t have time to go much further than that, though, as Wade’s jump ended and the severed lure snapped back at him like an overstretched bungee cord. 

He leaned forward, teeth gritted and hand clutching at his chest as he tried to breathe through the unexpected pain. So preoccupied was he that he didn’t notice how quiet Vanessa was until he looked over at her and saw the shellshocked look on her face. 

“Hey, you okay?” he asked, nudging her knee with his. She blinked slowly and took a stuttering breath before forcing a smile. 

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. I just can’t wait until all this is over.”

“What happened? Were you hurt?” Logan straightened and his hands clenched into fists. “I swear, I wanted to come for you, but—”

“No, not a scratch on me,” Vanessa said, standing abruptly and turning away, but not before Logan saw the tears pooling in her eyes. 

“Something happened.”

“I just realized, stupidly, after all this time…” Vanessa swiped at the tears before they could fall and looked over her shoulder at her roommate. “We’re still back where we started.”

Ah. She was still the odd man out. He had Wade, Wade had him, and she’d have no one. He didn’t know the words to make any of this better. She seemed to be waiting for him to say something, anything, but all he could do was stare at her helplessly. After too long a pause, she took a stuttering breath and left for her room. And for Logan, the silence of the apartment at this early hour proved too much. At half past two he left for the bar in the hopes of finding the solution to all their problems at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. 

He didn’t. 

May, 2016

The day after the April jump, Vanessa was back to her old self, acting as though nothing had happened. Logan, who was desperately lacking in the communication department, didn’t bring it up, but there was a tension between them that hadn’t been there since before the warehouse in Coquitlam. Still, for the next 29 days, life went on. 

The weather had grown much nicer in recent weeks, meaning Logan had a lot to keep him busy at Xavier’s. He had become less stand off-ish towards the other X-Men, and no longer felt a lingering sense of dread during his long shifts. It wasn’t the almost familial closeness of years past, but he talked to them more than just a passing “Good afternoon.” He asked Remy how his relationship with Marie was, he swapped gardening tips with Ororo, and in a surprising twist, he actually asked Scott and Jean about specifics of the lure that Hank’s textbooks didn’t cover. 

“You still haven’t met Wade?” Scott asked, no judgment in his voice, when Logan mentioned how the lure had become “uncomfortable.” The three of them were in one of the X Mansion’s kitchens at the lunch hour. Logan hadn’t sought Scott or Jean out, but when he saw they were in the room he needed, he hadn’t immediately turned and left, either. The conversation was stilted, but it felt like the faintest hints of a bridge were forming.

“I kept silent for a year. Makes sense he needs to work through shit,” Logan answered. 

“That must be hard on all three of you,” Jean said. Logan had learned quickly she had a fondness for Vanessa, which made him wonder just what had transpired on his jumps when the human woman was thrown into his body. 

“It’s not great,” he sighed.

“It’s possible that’s why the lure has become unbearable. Now that it’s been acknowledged, its job is to bring you and Wade together,” Scott suggested. 

Logan scowled up at the ceiling. “Should’ve just said something months ago. Saved us all this trouble.”

Jean put a sympathetic arm on his shoulder, surprising him. And he surprised himself even more when he didn’t shrug her off. “You can’t change the past, unfortunately. But this is only a temporary limbo. I know for a fact the lure is more powerful than even the most stubborn people.”

That was a loaded statement. Logan did his best not to think about the implications of it. 

He continued to teach Vanessa drive, even with the tension between. She could manage the clutch and shifting quite well now, and was cruising around their chosen K Mart parking lot with very little guidance from him. 

“I think you’re ready to take it on the road,” Logan told her after one session. Vanessa laughed nervously at that, her hands working on the steering wheel. 

“Maybe a few more laps around the lot first.”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” he responded with a shrug. His roommate started around the lot once more, working her way slowly up to third gear. It was just the sound of the tires on pavement and the engine accelerating, and dammit, it felt like the first day of their cross-country road trip months ago.

“Do you have anything planned for Day 29?” Vanessa finally broke the strained silence. The jump was coming up in the next week, and they hadn’t really talked about Wade since April. 

But, though they hadn’t spoken about his soulmate, Logan had given May’s jump date a lot of thought. He desperately hoped this would be Wade’s last one, and he was pulling out all the stops. He was going to try one more time to convince the man to meet up, because the merc was taking far too long on his own

“I may have googled romantic date ideas,” he started, and that earned him a laugh from his roommate. 

“What matters is that you’re trying,” she snickered. “What did Google tell you?”

“To take Wade on a sunset harbor cruise.”

Vanessa blinked. “Damn! That sounds pricey.”

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of sick of drawing this out. I consider it an investment,” Logan said with a fleeting smile.

“What if he jumps prior to sunset?” she asked. “Did you think of anything else?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve planned an entire fucking day.” He ticked the events off on his hand. “Brunch at this rooftop restaurant—both of which are ridiculous concepts, but apparently it’s romantic—followed by the botanical gardens, then touring a whiskey distillery in Manhattan—”

“Are you sure that one isn’t for you?” his roommate interrupted with a smirk. Logan rolled his eyes and continued.

“—then a couple’s cooking class, and finally the cruise.”

“Holy shit, Logan,” Vanessa tsked. “Good thing I have the whole day off. How much did you spend?”

“Does it matter? This has to end.” Logan turned to the woman in the driver’s seat. “I’m sick of it, you’re sick of it, and I don’t care what Wade says about his revenge. He’s gotta be sick of it, too.”

Vanessa looked at him empathetically. “It’s a good try.”

Logan’s shoulders dropped ever so slightly. “You don’t think it will work.”

“I don’t know.” Vanessa sighed. “I hope it does. I really do. Cuz you’re right, I’m fucking sick of being pushed out of my own body. But I also…I know Wade. He’s got a stubborn streak and, though he’ll never admit it, he needs to be liked. That extends doubly to his soulmate.”

There it was, the allusion to something that would make Logan reject Wade a second time. “What is so bad?” he asked. “What happened at the X Genesis warehouse?”

Vanessa met his eye, and for a moment he thought she would break down and tell him the other half of the story that he didn’t know. But she ended up sighing and bringing the Jeep to a smooth stop. “As much as I want to tell you…I really can’t. That’s for Wade, and Wade alone, to say.”

That moment was the closest Logan had ever come to inflicting damage on his Jeep. The situation was frustrating, infuriating. He wanted to be mad at Wade, but it was Logan who bore responsibility for the initial slight. Vanessa clearly sensed how the mutant was teetering on the edge of some barbarian rage, because she sad, “I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before.”

But, Logan was sure, she wasn’t this time. 

Day 29 came. Brunch passed, as did the gardens, and the distillery tour. With each passing hour Logan grew more and more anxious. He just wanted to plead his case and end this, but the universe took its sweet time. They were just boarding the harbor cruise when the lure appeared, and Vanessa’s step faltered just slightly. 

“You’ve gone all out tonight,” Wade said, looking around. Logan breathed a sigh of relief. He’d just been starting to wonder if the jump would occur closer to midnight, after everything he’d planned. “Though I find it concerning that a man with a metal skeleton is willing to go out into the deeper parts of the New York Bay.”

“Drastic times, drastic measures,” Logan answered. They made their way to the starboard side of the yacht, passing happy couples smiling and holding flutes of champagne. He snagged two flutes from the tray of one of the waiters and passed one to Wade. The merc took it but didn’t drink. 

“You think the Love Boat will change anything?” Wade asked. “Because I get the feeling you think I want to avoid you. Which, granted, I did at first. That lasted about as long as a frat boy in bed with his new girlfriend. But you must also think that I like feeling like my chest is being torn apart by those metal claws of yours every goddamn time I jump, and I really don’t.”

So the lure was making Wade just as miserable as Logan. The mutant put a hand on Wade’s shoulder and turned the merc to face him. “Then just tell me where you are . You don’t have to go after Weapon X alone.”

Wade looked down at Logan’s hand, and Logan realized it was the first time he’d touched Wade-as-Vanessa. The merc sucked in a breath through his teeth. He looked as tired as Logan felt. “It’s more than that. If I could come find you, I would. Let’s leave it there.”

“Fine,” Logan bit out as he dropped his hand. “Do you at least have an ETA on when this will be over?”

Wade stared out over the bay as the yacht pulled away from the dock. The sun was low on the horizon, casting its brilliant dying rays on the waves. When he spoke, his voice was uncharacteristically no-nonsense.“You’re teaching Vanessa to drive, right?”

“Yes,” Logan answered, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice. Wade nodded slowly. 

“Maybe don’t take her on the highways just yet. Maybe give it a week or two. Just to be safe.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Wade looked up at Logan. Something glittered in his eyes, but Logan couldn’t put a name to it. “It means I’ll find you soon. Just a little longer, Peanut.”

Something about that look had the fight leaving Logan. He leaned forward against the yacht’s railing. “Sure. Whatever.”

Wade rested his elbows beside Logan’s on the railing. “And I mean it. No highways.”

A rueful smile tugged at the corner’s of Logan’s mouth but he didn’t respond. 

“God, and now I have three hours with The Miserable One.” Wade’s tone shifted abruptly from somber to his normal joking voice. “Come on, don’t you want to touch my soul and teach me love?”

“Not in that body,” Logan said, taking a sip of his champagne. Wade chuckled. 

“She’s not your type.”

“It’s not that,” the mutant said. He looked away. “She’s not mine, period. She’s yours.”

“She did always say we matched each other’s freak.” Wade’s expression was briefly melancholic, but it passed quickly. “Which makes me wonder: why you and me? What do you bring to the table of this fated relationship?”

Logan downed the rest of his champagne. “Alcoholism.”

Wade barked a laugh. “There’s more to it than that. The universe didn’t just randomly pair us together.”

“To be honest, Wade, I have no idea. Seems pretty shitty to even give the immortal mutant with claws a soft and very killable soulmate.” And it was true. There were simply no solid clues as to why they were soulmates. Maybe slight indications here and there, but they didn’t amount to a compatibility that transcended the physical.

“Killable, huh?” Wade tilted his head, as if that one word held the answer. Logan couldn’t begin to guess what the answer was. “I didn’t die in the Coquitlam warehouse.”

“Well obviously,” Logan grumbled. “But you don’t owe me anything.”

“I should have,” Wade said. The mutant eyed his soulmate out of the corner of his eye, prompting him to continue. “Died, that is. The hyperbaric chamber I was in exploded like Alderaan, which would have been enough to kill any normal human. A rebar to the gut would have finished the job. Not to mention being cooked like a suckling pig by the resulting fire. I think I counted at least seven “Yup that should have killed me” moments getting out of there.”

Logan was struck speechless. “You’re human.”

“Guess I activated my X gene at exactly the right time,” Wade answered. “Very convenient for the plot. It being a healing factor was a nice touch. Keeps the cancer from killing me, too, which is absolutely hilarious. X Genesis actually managed to do what they promised…at least for me.”

Things were falling into place. No wonder Vanessa wasn’t in danger; if Wade really did have a healing factor, it was the same as being pushed into Logan’s body. Traumatic, but not life-ending. Still, if Wade couldn’t die…

“I felt the lure blink out,” Logan said dumbly. 

“Probably cuz I was too busy chasing that British fucker who tortured me out of the wreckage,” Wade said. “I just got too far away. And then Angel punched me into next Tuesday, which meant I couldn’t go back to the warehouse cuz a healing factor doesn’t mean you can’t be knocked unconscious apparently. Little loophole there.”

Logan’s mind was racing. Wade couldn’t die. Wade couldn’t die. Was it possible that was one of the reasons the universe had paired them up? But then, Wade hadn’t been invincible when the jumps had started. Did the lure know that that had been in his future? Had this all played out like it was supposed to? He stared hard into the surf, dizzy from the ramifications of Wade’s revelation. 

“If you just can’t die, then why avoid me? If that’s all it is…”

“Oh, I didn’t say that was all that happened to me,” Wade said calmly. He took his first sip of champagne, though it was more like a gulp. “But we’re working on that. And when the bastard has fixed what he’s done to me and I put a bullet in his skull, I’ll come find you. Promise, Peanut.”

Logan was still irked he didn’t know the whole story, was still desperate to help bring Ajax to justice, but he could relax now that he knew Wade wasn’t at risk. The roaring gnawing agonizing pain of the lure would just have to be ignored for the time being. He exhaled through his nose. Finally, he said, “No highways?” 

“No highways. With any luck, this will be my last jump.”

That’s all Logan wanted. “Then you’ve got a deal.”

Chapter Text

End of May, 2016

“How did you know Wade couldn’t die?” Logan asked a few days after the May jump. He and Vanessa were at the dining table in the apartment, a mound of McDonald’s fries between them. Vanessa had a bacon McWrap, and Logan had his usual order with no tomato and no ketchup. It had been a workday for him, and though it was one of Vanessa’s days off, she’d spent it helping a friend move furniture across town. They both were exhausted and neither felt like cooking. McDonald’s was the next best thing. 

Vanessa shrugged. “A hunch. I accidentally gave myself a paper cut in Wade’s body and it healed instantly.”

“A paper cut doesn't equate to not being able to die. Not every healing factor can do that.”

“Oh, I know,” Vanessa said. “The paper cut gave me an idea.”

“And that idea was…?”

“I stabbed myself.”

Logan choked on a fry. “You stabbed yourself?”

“Well, I stabbed Wade as me, but I had to know how he escaped a burning building almost unscathed. Turns out any wound of his heals in seconds.”

The mutant narrowed his eyes at “almost,” but he knew better than to ask after it. He’d be stonewalled yet again, and he didn’t need that frustration. “I would recommend not purposefully injuring yourself in the future.”

“Wasn’t any worse than when I appeared in the middle of a gunfight.” She gave him a pointed look before quickly steering the conversation to a different topic. “How is grounds keeping? ”

“Fine. Yard work isn’t that engaging, but it’s easy,” Logan answered, wondering what she was getting at. “Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” she said dryly. “Just wondered if you were getting tired of mowing lawns in the heat when there is a nice, cushy teaching job open.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been talking to someone.”

“A few someones, actually.”

“Jubilee?”

“She’s one.”

“Jean?”

Vanessa ate a fry while maintaining eye contact, wordlessly confirming the mutant’s suspicions. Logan leaned back in his seat and groaned.

“Why won’t they leave that be?”

“Because you’d be good at it,” Vanessa said. 

“Why won’t you leave it be?”

“Because you’re lying to yourself when you say you wouldn’t enjoy it.”

It wasn’t entirely wrong. Logan had stories—about wars, social movements, big events—from the last 200 years. He wouldn’t be teaching from a textbook, he'd be teaching from experience. Even if his memories were still somewhat fractured from his own stint with Weapon X, his firsthand accounts would be far better than whatever the current teacher was reading from a book. But old habits died hard and though Logan had taken baby steps towards repairing his relationship with his teammates, teaching among them felt like too big of a leap for the time being. 

“Why are you still hesitating? You’ve put down roots, even if those roots are just a couch in my apartment and a job trimming hedges. And, when all this is over, you’ll have a soulmate. That’s about as rooted as you can get,” Vanessa said. There was nothing but sincerity in her voice. 

“Why do you care so much?” Logan asked. He didn’t expect the question to be a difficult one, but his roommate looked away. He’d struck a nerve. 

“Because,” she said at last. “I never had it.”

In that moment, Logan had the shocking realization that he knew nothing about his roommate’s past. He knew her present, but everything before she’d met Wade was a mystery that she’d kept under wraps. 

“Vanessa, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be.” She shrugged it off, and managed a small smile. “I’m over it. Your dad leaves when you’re three, your mom finds solace in whatever fresh high she can bum off the drug dealer down the hall. You’re an outcast at school and you’re on your own by seventeen when the cops finally arrest your caregiver for possession. You manage to make a life for yourself despite it all. I’ve never been alone by choice. It kills me to see you miserable and lonely of your own volition.”

Logan ran a hand through his hair. “Well, shit.”

“Obviously don’t take the job for me. But for god’s sakes, learn to have relationships with people. They are fucking precious and you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s…” her voice trailed off, but Logan could extrapolate from there. Wade must’ve been the first to stick around her in a long time. 

And Logan had fucking taken him from her.

“I’ll…talk to Charles about it,” he said at last, because there was nothing he could say that would undo what the universe had put into motion, but dammit he could take a fucking teaching job if it made her happy. “Probably not this school year, though.”

Vanessa rolled her eyes fondly. “Well, of course. But they’ll be happy to have you.”

So that was how Logan ended up in Charles’ office a day or so later, sitting in an overstuffed leather chair that felt like it barely supported his 400 pound frame, finally accepting the teaching position that had followed him for a decade. The professor folded his hands on the large oak desk and smiled. 

“I’m pleased you’ve come around,” he said. “Your experiences are unmatched and the stories you impart will be invaluable to the next generation.”

“Sorry it’s taken so long,” Logan answered. “I needed time.” 

Charles chuckled. “And perhaps a push in the right direction?” His eyes twinkled knowingly. The question itself was obviously rhetorical; of course Charles would know about his soulmate predicament. “Does this mean you will also consider being more than a mere consultant with the X-Men?”

Logan huffed a laugh. “Maybe.”

“One step at a time,” Charles responded with a nod. He held out his hand to Logan, who stood and took it. “Welcome back, Logan.”

Word of the new history teacher spread impossibly fast (but what else could one expect in a school with a number of prominent telepathic mutants?), and before Logan had even left the property he was confronted by Scott and Remy, the latter leaning against a door frame shuffling cards while the former grinned. 

“Hear you’re officially joining the team, pote,” Remy said. 

“Faculty. Not team,” Logan emphasized. 

The younger mutant waggled his eyebrows. “Not yet .”

“Does this mean you’ll start wearing the suit on missions?” Scott asked. 

Logan made no effort to disguise the look on his face. “Absolutely not.”

This earned him a laugh from Remy and a resigned yet somehow still amused smile from Scott. 

“We’ll get there,” Scott said. 

For all the grief the soulmate bond had caused Logan, his life was almost unrecognizable from what it had been a year and a half after his first jump…in a good way. He had a steady job, a permanent residence, and a relationship with not just the X-Men but Vanessa as well. In fact, the mutant couldn't recall the last days-long bender he’d gone on. His trips to the bar were few and far between, and never for more than a few hours. He might not have Wade yet, he might have to endure the merc jumping just a bit longer, but ultimately he'd have a soulmate, too. How had his life changed so drastically in such a short time? The answer was, of course, Vanessa, and Logan was still hoping some magical solution to her losing everything while he gained it all would fall from the sky. 

His biggest mistake was thinking none of his new life was untouchable. 

It was a Thursday morning in June, two weeks after he had officially accepted the teaching position at Xavier's. Vanessa was lounging on the couch in the apartment, enjoying some downtime before she turned in to sleep for her shift that night, and Logan was preparing for one of his last shifts as the groundskeeper. The TV was on in the background, a news program detailing the morning commute. Logan didn't pay it much attention as he brewed a pot of coffee. It was Vanessa who drew his attention to the screen.

"Holy shit," she said, her voice shocked and horror-filled. Logan looked up.

"What?" But he didn't need her to answer the question, because his eye caught the TV at that moment, and he froze. The morning commute looked like it had turned into an installment in the Final Destination franchise: drone footage showed a pileup of flipped cars blocking a main New York highway, with a banner at the bottom that said "Shots Fired On Interstate 78." 

Wade's words came rushing back to Logan in an instant: No highways. 

"I have to go," Logan said abruptly, slamming his coffee mug on the counter and racing for the door. 

"Wait, where?" Vanessa called after him, but he didn't turn. It was Wade. It had to be. This was his big plan, and it was either over and he no longer needed to avoid Logan, or it was out of control. Either way, the mutant needed to be there. 

Traffic was, of course, hellish, as the closing of a major thoroughfare in a heavily populated area like New York meant a few hundred thousand people suddenly had to find alternate routes. It took Logan far too long to navigate to the site of the wreck. He was stopped by no less than four police officers over a mile from the true pileup. 

"Sorry, sir. This road is closed due to a traffic incident,” one of them said. 

Logan flashed his badge. "I'm with the X-Men. What's going on?"

The cop raised an eyebrow. "You're behind the curve. A couple of your own already came and left."

The mutant had no idea how to react to that. Why would the other X-Men respond to a traffic incident? They had no way of knowing it was Wade seeking revenge against Ajax and Weapon X. To them, there was nothing linking this tragedy to mutant affairs. They shouldn't be involved. 

Unless. 

It was a stupid thought. They would have told him if they knew anything, of course. They wouldn't have kept Wade's location from him. They wouldn't have kept an investigation into Weapon X from him. Surely it was purely a coincidence…

"Thank you, Officer. I guess there was some lack of communication," Logan finally told the cop, and turned his Jeep around. His first instinct was to call Scott to clear things up, but he realized he'd forgotten to take his phone in his rush to leave the apartment. There was no time to return to grab it; he was going to be late to his shift as it was. Logan could just ask when he got to Xavier's. Scott and Charles and Jean would clear things up, and there would be a perfectly acceptable non-Wade, non-Weapon X reason why an X-Men team had showed up at a six car pileup. 

When he reached the X Mansion, he hastily parked his Jeep and jogged not to the gardens or the sheds, but to the main door. No one greeted him when he entered the foyer. No one met him when he descended into the lower levels, passed the biometric scans, or made a beeline for the War Room. The entire way he took this as proof that his hunch was wrong, and he relaxed ever so slightly. Surely someone would have tried to stop him by now if they were keeping shit from him. 

That theory crumbled to pieces when he heard voices coming from the War Room. His heightened hearing could pick up on the words long before whoever was inside would be able to hear his footsteps, and his nose told him it was Scott and Piotr. 

"—is becoming a problem. There were no civilian casualties on the interstate, but there very well could have been," Piotr was saying in his thick Russian accent. 

"He's a loose canon. I don't know if telling Logan would make things better or worse at this point, but we are running out of options,” Scott said.

"Tell me what?" Logan said, stopping in the doorway to see the two other mutants leaning over the table at the center of the War Room. Piotr looked at Scott, his expression unreadable. But Scott was an open book, his mouth thinning into a line. 

"It's probably nothing," he tried, but there was a false note to his voice. Logan narrowed his eyes, prompting the other mutant to approach. "There's been a new mutant by the name of Deadpool causing trouble. He's after someone name Francis. And we have reason to believe he may actually be Wade Wilson."

The air rushed out of Logan's lungs like he'd been hit by a freight truck. “But you're just now learning this. You haven't known about this for months.”

Scott sighed. "We weren’t sure, and we thought including you might..."

"Might what?" 

"Complicate things. Wade's made it clear to you he isn't ready to meet you, and given how this Deadpool is escalating, the decision was made to wait until a positive ID had been confirmed to tell you," Scott finished. 

Everything in Logan's field of vision was shades of maroon and scarlet and crimson. A rage he hadn't felt in a very long time boiled to the surface, and in the next split second he had slammed Scott up against a wall, holding his claws to the other mutant's neck. 

"How long have you suspected?” he snarled.

Piotr attempted to deescalate the situation. "Logan, this won't help anything—"

"Shut up!" Logan shouted over his shoulder. He returned his burning gaze to Scott, staring daggers through the quartz visor. "How. Long?"

"Since the end of March," Scott relented. 

March. That meant that Scott had stood in that kitchen months ago and lied to Logan’s face. They’d always had a rocky past, that was for certain, but the older mutant had always respected Charles’ chosen successor. All of that evaporated in an instant. He had never wanted to kill someone he once trusted more. Common sense won out in his mind and he stepped back, sheathing his claws as he did so. He was still enraged, but when he spoke his voice was dangerously calm. 

"All of you can go to hell.” And without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the War Room. They had almost doomed Wade to death by refusing to help him take down the X Genesis warehouse for fear of an international incident, all while espousing worthless platitudes about how they were worried about him, wanted to help him. And then they'd kept Wade from him, for what? Fear that he would complicate things with his own fucking soulmate? It was bullshit. All of it. Vanessa had been wrong about putting down roots; he wasn't better off because of it. He should have stayed in Montreal, drinking himself under a table for the next hundred years. 

"Logan!" Scott called after him, but it was too little, too late. Logan walked away and he didn't look back.

He didn't go home after leaving the X Mansion, choosing instead to take up residence on a bar stool at Sister Margaret's when the joint opened at 11. Weasel took one look at Logan's face when he entered and set an empty tumbler and a full bottle of Jack Daniel's on the counter. 

"You look like roadkill, my friend," he said. Logan grunted in response. "Wanna spill your woes to your friendly neighborhood bartender?"

"Everyone fucking sucks," the mutant said, pouring the whiskey to the very brim of the tumbler. 

"I see you're not in the mood for company.” Weasel eyed the overflowing tumbler. Logan's answer was to down the liquor in three gulps. "Right. I'll leave you to marinate. Let me know if the Wolverine needs another…bottle." 

With that, Weasel moved onto the other the other patrons. And there Logan sat for hours, numbing the ache with bottom shelf whiskey. His soulmate didn't seem to want him, and his team had kept the identity of that soulmate from him. Is this how Wade had felt when he realized Logan had kept their soulmate status a secret? Completely, utterly, betrayed? No wonder he'd been angry at the academic awards.

He felt like absolute dog shit, and his mind kept running circles about where this had all gone wrong. He kept coming back to January 2015—the night of his first jump. Sure, his life hadn't been stellar prior to then, but he hadn't been so emotionally wrecked in years. What did he have to show for all the progress he'd made in a year and a half of jumps? It was easy in that moment to want everyone in his life to fade away. For the X-Men to leave him alone permanently, for Wade to move on with Vanessa forever. For Logan to turn back into the lone wolf he was meant to be.

Around 5 in the afternoon, Weasel turned the bar over to a gruff middle-aged man with instructions to keep the whiskey flowing. For his part, the relief bartender did not talk to Logan but did make sure to keep a full bottle of Jack Daniel's nearby until closing time well after two in the morning. 

"Hey, man, I have to shut the bar down sometime," the bartender said. "I need to close you out and send you somewhere else."

"Fine," Logan grumbled, paying his massive tab before sliding off the bar stool. He was not currently good to drive, but his healing factor would clear the alcohol in half an hour. He just had to wait it out on the sidewalk until he was sober. And then he'd get in his Jeep, and go…go where? Back to the apartment? What was he supposed to do now? Continue on as if the universe wasn't screwing him over without even the courtesy of a reach around? 

In the end, he never made it back to Vanessa's flat. He didn't even make it into his Jeep. He sat down in an alley to sober up, and the next thing he knew he was jerking awake to sunlight slanting onto his face. It must have been around six in the morning, meaning he'd spent close to four hours sleeping in an alley like a bum. Great. 

Now, stone cold sober in the light of a new day, Logan could think. He still didn't have his phone, and he wondered if Vanessa had reached out to Jean when he hadn't returned last night. Hopefully she wasn't too worried or upset. He should get up, return to the apartment, and figure out what his next move was. Obviously the teaching position was out. It almost felt like New York was out altogether. He should pack his shit and put the entire state in his rear view mirror. Fuck this soulmate bullshit. It had brought him nothing but grief. 

But that would mean never seeing either Wade or Vanessa again, and his heart twisted like a wrung-out dishrag at that thought. He could write off missing Wade as a side affect of the soulmate lure, but Vanessa? Why on Earth did the thought of leaving her feel like a gut punch? 

This was the problem with roots. Ripping them up hurt like hell. And there was only one way Logan dealt with pain: alcohol. He didn't return to Sister Margaret's, but he did spend the day bouncing around from Irish pubs to American bars, never staying in one long enough to get cut off. And he might have continued the cycle if, around 7:30 at night, a familiar face hadn't burst into the Beercade (Logan realized too late that it was the same Beercade he'd once visited with Wade in Vanessa's body). 

"There you are!" Vanessa. Logan didn't even look up from the glass of rum before him, just coherent enough to wonder how she’d found him. 

"Here I am," he sighed. Christ, he sounded pathetic. His roommate stormed up to his bar stool.

"Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to reach you? How many people are trying to get a hold of you? Do you even know what's going on?" 

Something in her voice made Logan look up, and he was confused by the expression he saw there. It wasn't anger, it wasn't frustration, it wasn't annoyance. It was fear. His blood turned to ice in his veins instantly. 

"What happened?" 

Vanessa pulled up a news program on her phone and held it up to him. On the screen, he saw an aerial view of a large estate. Smoke billowed from flames shooting out of the windows in a couple of smaller buildings on the grounds, and there were emergency vehicles parked behind a gate at the edge of the video's frame. There was something familiar about the whole scene, but his alcohol-affected mind was struggling to identify it. 

"Where is this?" Logan said, alarmed.

"It doesn't look familiar? It's the fucking X Mansion, Logan!" Vanessa said.

The mutant jerked his head up, eyes wide. "What?"

"If you had your fucking phone on you, you'd know. But we have to go now. I'll explain on the way." She grabbed his bicep and made to drag him off the bar stool, but Logan was unsteady on his feet and almost face planted on the floor. The world was spinning and he knew he couldn't drive in his state. He said as much as he staggered after her out of the Beercade.

"Don't you have a healing factor that prevents this?" Vanessa said. 

"I can still get drunk, I just sober up fast."

"Okay, so fucking sober up!"

"It'll take too long," Logan said, shaking his head. "At least half an hour."

"So what, you're just going to let your team fucking burn?" 

It was funny, because yesterday he had wished for just that. After what Scott had kept from him, he owed them nothing…but that wasn’t true. There may have been fallout in recent years, but they had rescued him all those years ago. And he’d chosen to stay. The waters were rocky now, sure. But he couldn’t let them die. He needed to get to them. He needed to protect them.

Of course, all that was well and good, but it didn’t change the fact that the mutant was still piss drunk. An idea came to Logan. "It's not a zombie apocalypse, but it is an emergency. You can drive."

Vanessa shook her head. "Oh, no. No no no no no. I haven't driven on an actual road yet. And you think I can handle the fucking interstate?"

“We don’t have any other options. By the time I sober up, it could be too late." Logan grabbed Vanessa by her upper arms and stared hard into her eyes. "My Jeep is in a parking garage around the corner. I need you to drive. Please.”

She blinked, looked away, set her jaw. "Okay." The woman took a deep breath. “I’ll drive."

Chapter Text

Stop and go traffic was the hardest part about driving a manual transmission, Logan assured Vanessa. Once she got to the interstate, away from traffic lights and crosswalks, she could set the cruise control and drive in the right lane all the way to the X Mansion. The tough part was just getting out of the city. 

Vanessa was obviously nervous when she slid behind the wheel, and her hands shook on the gear shift as she put the Jeep in reverse. She began to back out of the spot it had been nosed into, but slammed on the brakes when another car ignored her backup lights and drove behind her. The engine stalled and shut off. 

“Dammit!” she shouted. Logan winced, doing his best not to look at the clock on the dashboard. 

“That driver was a dick. Just start the car and try again,” he said in the calmest voice he could manage.

Vanessa was shaking her head. “What if I can’t do this? What then?” 

“You can.”

“But what if I can’t?”

Logan turned to her. “Then at least we did everything we could. But you can do this.”

His confidence was a complete fabrication, because inside he was panicking. Failure wasn’t an option here. Who was attacking the school? And why? And how? How? Vanessa had the answers, but the mutant kept his questions to himself, at least for the time being. There would be a chance on the drive to get the full story, once they made it to the highway and Vanessa could relax. 

His roommate successfully backed out of the spot and exited the parking garage, turning hesitantly onto the perpetually crowded streets. They were only ten minutes from the onramp, but getting there seemed to take forever. Every light they hit was red, every crosswalk spilled over with pedestrians who took their sweet time. The driving was also, by no means, smooth. Each stop was jerky as Vanessa struggled to find the right time to engage and disengage the clutch, and on occasion when she'd shift they could both hear the horrible sound of grinding gears.

It all added to the anxiety in the Jeep. But she didn't stall once she left the parking garage, and when she finally reached the interstate and turned on the car’s cruise control, both of them breathed a sigh of relief. They weren't where they needed to be yet, but it should be smooth driving from there—literally and metaphorically. 

Logan was sobering up, too, and without the alcohol to numb his mind he found he was vibrating with fear for everyone at Xavier's. 

"What is going on?" he finally asked, now that the Jeep’s cruise was set at highway speeds. "Who is attacking the school?"

Vanessa motioned to her purse in the passenger seat floorboards. “Your phone’s in there, the big zip pocket on the outside.” Logan retrieved the device as Vanessa continued. 

“Around 3 pm, your phone started going crazy. I didn't look but I'd bet every X-Men was begging you to come, considering Jean reached out to me around 5. She asked where you were. She sounded stressed. Said a mob of mutant hunters had gathered at the gates, and they…" Vanessa took a stuttering breath. "They didn't just have homemade weapons, Logan. They had automatic rifles. Military-grade. The cops were called to deescalate, avoid bloodshed. Jean said they just wanted you there to help protect the kids. Then I heard a crash, and the line went dead. I haven't heard from them since."

Logan's brain felt like static as he tried to comprehend what she'd said. "The mansion was on fire," he said. "On the news."

"Yeah." Vanessa swallowed. "CNN reported that the mutant hunters opened fire on the cops, but no one else has, so I don't know how true that is. But they broke the line somehow. I was searching every bar in the area for hours for you." She slammed her hand on the steering wheel. "Why the fuck did you leave your phone? Why didn't you come home?"

Logan looked out the window. The reason seemed so small in comparison to the mortal danger a school full of mutant adolescents was in. "The X-Men have known Wade's whereabouts since March. He's calling himself Deadpool, and he caused that incident on the highway yesterday. But they never told me about him. I overheard them deciding not to tell me."

Vanessa looked from Logan to the road and back again. "They knew?"

"Doesn't matter what they knew anymore. They might all be dead anyway." The mutant felt physically ill at the thought. He may have been angry, but the idea that people who had been a steady part of his life for years might not make it through the night had him fighting to stay in his right mind. They couldn't die. He couldn't let them.  

The mutant glanced down at his phone and flicked his messages open. There were over twenty unread texts from the various X-Men. 

There's trouble, Logan. You may want to get up here. Ororo. 

I know you hate me right now, that's fine. But you're needed at the X-Mansion. It’s urgent. Scott. 

The school's on lockdown right now. Are you coming? Jubilee. 

Mistakes were made, Logan, no one will deny that. But we need you right now. Where are you? Jean. 

The messages got more urgent the later it got, urging the Wolverine to come help. The last one, sent at 4:57, chilled him to the bone. 

We're suiting up. Things are getting bad. We could use you here. Jubilee. 

A feeling of utter helplessness overwhelmed him. They were all in danger, and he should be there with them. Fuck, why hadn't he just gone back for his phone? Why hadn't he gone home? Why hadn't he done any number of things besides drowning himself in liquor? The mutant scrubbed his hands down his face. 

"There's one last thing." Vanessa said. 

Logan laughed bitterly. "And what is that?"

"I heard from Wade."

"Is now the best time to bring him up?"

Vanessa pointed to her phone in a cupholder in the center console. "Look at my messages. It's from the number that isn't in my contacts."

The message had been sent close to 11 that morning, right around the time Logan would have been draining his first glass of alcohol: hey ness, its wade. i lost my old phone back in canada. sorry i didnt reach out sooner, but i think u know y. tell my angry soulmate 2 get his ass 2 hogwarts. my plans went south in a big fucking way. 

Logan stared at the screen. "Hogwarts?"

"That's what he called Xavier's," Vanessa explained. "He knew something was going to happen."

Logan frowned. He wasn't sure how Wade's revenge against Ajax equated to a mob of mutant hunters at Xavier's, but it certainly sounded suspicious. "Did you tell the X-Men about his text?"

Vanessa nodded. "I don't know how much of it they believed, but I hope it gave them a heads up to prepare before the intruders broke the police line."

The rest of the ride was nigh unbearable. As the sun sank below the horizon, Logan's eyes remained locked on the dash clock, knowing each minute they took to get to the Mansion was one more minute that his team might not survive. Would there even be anything left when they arrived?

The answer was yes, but it was hardly recognizable as the X Mansion, even in the dark summer night. The metal gate at the front drive was twisted off its hinges and laying to the side of the road. There were two cop cars parked on the shoulder, lights flashing, but no cops in sight. Beyond the gate and up the drive, the dark sky was glowing from fires that seemed to have spread to other areas of the estate. The smell of smoke nearly choked them. Vanessa slowly pulled up to the mangled gate, eyes wide. 

"How close should I get?" she asked. Logan didn’t want her sticking around at the front entrance; that would make it too easy for the wrong people to find her. 

“Drop me off here,” he instructed. “I’m going to make my way to the Mansion. Lock the car, turn around, and head back into town. Don’t stop for anyone. You're not a mutant, but I don't know if they'll care. I’ll text you when the coast is clear.”

Vanessa swallowed, and though fear was written plainly across her face, there was something more to it. In the next moment she was reaching across the console to throw her arms around his shoulders. Logan returned the hug.

"I'll be fine," he said.

“Of course you will. But I want everyone else to be fine, too.” She pulled away. “Go save everyone.”

"That's the plan." Logan opened the door to the acrid, smoke-filled air and climbed out of the Jeep. He shut the car door and waited until Vanessa had successfully turned the vehicle around before he took off at a run towards the flaming grounds. 

The Mansion was in a state even closer up. The main building was not on fire yet, but the sheds and the greenhouse to the east had already been reduced to ashes, and the flames were creeping northwest up the lawn to the estate. There were bodies everywhere . Many wore cop uniforms, and many looked like they might be innocent civilians if not for the AR-15s lying beside them. Signs that the X-Men had engaged were there as well—trees had been uprooted by someone with super strength, and the familiar burns from Scott's eye beams were evident on some of the mutant hunters. But so far, Logan couldn't see the bodies of any students or X-Men. That was reassuring.

The fighting must have been elsewhere, but Logan couldn't hear much over the crackle of the flames. The fire wasn't on top of him, but the sound of a hundred burning acres was almost deafening. He couldn't smell anything other than the smoke, either; his best bet was to seek out survivors inside. So, with a last look around the main yard, he approached the front entrance. The door was ajar, and as he got closer he could make out the popping of gunfire. Without another thought, he unsheathed his claws and threw the door open with his shoulder. 

The scene inside was chaos. The foyer was in shambles, one of the tables upended and being used as a shield for seven gun-toting mutant hunters to crouch behind. A suited-up Remy was pinned at the top of the staircase, half a dozen fearful students crouched behind him. The X-Man was in a bad way; blood poured from a gunshot wound in his right shoulder, leaving only his left hand free to charge and throw his dwindling cards. His face was determined, but there was an undercurrent of fear to his expression, as if he knew that he was losing, and he was the last thing standing between the kids and the hunters. 

That was, until Logan appeared behind the fuckers. The mutant took two steps into the foyer and ran his claws through the body of the nearest hunter. That got the attention of the man’s friends, half of whom turned their weapons to him. The AR-15s at close range packed a wicked punch, and though Logan couldn't die from gunshot wounds, if enough of him was blown away it would keep him from helping elsewhere until he healed. He had to make this quick. 

With an enraged yell, he tore his claws from the first hunter and dove at the next two, slashing as he went. They fell. Now all the remaining hunters had turned to him, unloading entire clips into his body. The pain fueled his rage and in mere seconds all seven mutant hunters lay dead and in pieces on the floor. He stood there panting as his wounds closed. 

"You showed up just in time," Remy said from the top of the stairs. The X-Man sagged against the railing, his left hand now free to put pressure on his shoulder wound. The kids with him, still wide-eyed with terror, raced down the staircase. Some were hurt, but the injuries themselves didn't appear serious. Minor burns and cuts, but nothing life-threatening. 

"Where are you taking them?" Logan asked. 

Remy descended the steps. "Down below. We were trying to evacuate, but the X-Jet's hangar was damaged in the attack. Shelter in place is our only option right now."

Shit. "Where is everyone?"

Remy's laugh was humorless. "Where isn't everyone? We're all spread out, trying to get the students to safety. There's so many of these enfoirés."

"Do you need an escort down below?" Logan asked. He could hear the distant sounds of gunfire deeper in the Mansion, and he was hesitant to leave an injured Remy and six students alone. But the other man shook his head. 

"We're almost there," he said. "And you're needed elsewhere. Jean and Scott were going after a classroom of students trapped somewhere, but I haven't heard from them in a while. Last I knew they were upstairs. Maybe find them."

Logan nodded. He started to leave, but he heard Remy call after him. 

"Glad you came back, pote."

Guilt found a home next to Logan's heart, but he didn't look back. He charged up the stairs without a word. There would be time to unpack these emotions when he made sure everyone was safe. Logan was on alert, every sense peeled for hidden assailants, and that was probably why he wasn't aware of the sharp pain of the lure until he ran straight into the red-suited man in a mask. 

They both fell to the floor with a thud, and though Logan tried to get up it was the lure that kept him down. His chest was suddenly on fire with the sensation of a hundred ropes wrapped around his heart, pulling him towards the man in the red suit. He knew without seeing the man’s face exactly who was behind the mask.

“Wade.” He meant to snarl the man’s name, because god dammit he was pissed at his soulmate, but it came out more like a moan. The irony was not lost on him that any other day he would have been ecstatic to finally, finally, meet his soulmate in person. 

“Nice of you to show up, Peanut,” Wade said, picking himself up. A set of katanas, which he’d dropped when Logan ran into him, lay some distance away. He went and collected them while continuing, “Thought I was going to have all the fun.”

Logan stood, his lip curled with anger “What the hell do you know about all this?” 

Wade rubbed the back of his neck. “I may have miscalculated.”

The mutant was desperate to know more, but the smell of smoke and the sound of gunfire hadn’t ceased. There were more urgent matters. He stalked past Wade, claws out.

“I sense you’re mad,” Wade said, jogging alongside Logan. “I think this makes us even.”

“People have died, Wade.”

“Only bad guys, so far.”

Logan lost his patience and turned to his soulmate, throwing the man against the wall and pinning him there with his left arm. He raised his right, threatening to sink his claws into the unkillable merc’s shoulder. But despite the rage, despite the anger, the proximity was almost too much. It felt like they were two oppositely charged ends of a magnet being drawn together, and it was a battle not to give into the lure. 

“Do you want to tell me how you knew about the mutant hunters at the X Mansion?” Logan hissed in his soulmate’s face.

“Yes, alright!” Wade held up his hands in surrender. Logan lowered his right arm just slightly, prompting the merc to continue. “Francis saw you at the warehouse in Canada, and then Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead found me when I tried to kill him on the interstate. Somehow he put the idea in the mob’s mind to go mutant hunting at the X Mansion since he knows you’re involved. Probably thinks he can get to both of us this way.”

“Who the fuck is Francis?”

“That’s Ajax’s real name.”

Logan raised his arm again, his anger rising like the tide. “So he’s doing all this because of you?”

“Because of us. Yeah, I’ve been after him, but you brought down his X Genesis warehouse, remember?”

Ajax’s words in Coquitlam were suddenly loud in Logan’s head. I’m flattered the Wolverine sought me out. It must mean I’m doing something right.

He’d done this. Ajax had targeted the X Mansion because of Logan’s involvement. The mutant sheathed his claws and stepped back, momentarily overcome by remorse. Scott shouldn’t have worried about an international incident; he should have worried about the surviving Weapon X members seeking revenge for their losses. The funny thing about loose ends was they could always come back to snare you. 

“Fucking shit,” Logan muttered. He had given Ajax a reason to organize the mob, and that meant that whatever happened here was partially his fault. He’d already wasted too much time drowning his insignificant sorrows in liquor; he couldn’t let the hunters win tonight.  

“You wrapping up that pity party?” his soulmate asked. “Because we don’t want your people dying.”

No, they didn’t. And Logan couldn’t stand by and do nothing. He bared his teeth, his resolve strengthening. “Let’s fucking go.”

Chapter Text

As Logan and Wade made their way through the X Mansion, it became clear very quickly how the mob had breached the defenses: they had simply overwhelmed the X-Men with sheer numbers. For every X-Man there were a dozen gun-toting mutant hunters. 

“Where the hell are all of them coming from?” Logan snarled, ripping his claws out of the chest of the intruder before him.

“It’s like a video game!” Wade piped up. “Some PC gamer typed player.placeatXMansion 80085 seven thousand times.” He sliced through two hunters as he yapped. 

Logan was moving down the hall, the both of them having cleared out the room they were in. There were no signs of any other mutants, students or X-Men. “Do you just say random shit?” 

Wade’s next words were even more baffling than his previous ones. “The Bethesda players reading this know what I’m talking about.” He trotted along after Logan, katanas at his sides. “Besides, you were jumping for a year without telling me. You should know.”

And it was true, Logan did know. He had a response on his tongue, but suddenly held up a fist to signal a stop. Wade obeyed. 

“What do you smell, boy?” he asked in a whisper. 

“Jean and Scott,” Logan said, catching their familiar scents just underneath the odorous smoke that permeated the entire Mansion. With them he could also detect other unfamiliar smells. Students? Or hunters? “They’re with a lot of other people. This way.” Before waiting for Wade to answer, he was taking a sharp left, running full-tilt towards a classroom at the end of the branching hallway. He could see a mob at the door, a number of intruders trying to break it down with a SWAT-style battering ram. 

Logan could smell his fellow X-Men behind the door, and still more scents that could only be students. They were all cornered, and it was only a matter of time before the battering ram broke down the door (even if Jean was keeping it shut with her powers, she would run out of juice long before the mutant hunters ran out of ammo). And as far as Logan knew, no one in that room was bulletproof. 

But of course, he and Wade were . The merc recognized this at the same time as Logan. 

“Hey, skeever-butts!” he shouted from behind. As one, the hunters turned and raised their rifles, with only a few getting off shots before Logan tore through them, slashing wherever he saw flesh. By the time Wade reached his side, the mutant was covered in blood, and the mob had been reduced to a horrifying red mass that was flung all over the corridor. 

“That’s my boy! Forget Wolverine; they should call you the Meat Grinder,” Wade chuckled, kicking at some unidentified piece of mutant hunter at his feet. “Can’t even tell these were people. And you know I’d let you grind my meat any day.” Any other day, Logan might have celebrated the fact that Wade was openly coming onto him, but now was not the time. He ignored the merc, trying to wipe some of the blood from his jacket, and approached the classroom. 

“It’s me,” he called through the closed door. “It’s safe to come out.”

The door opened, and there stood Jean and Scott, both of them looking quite a bit worse for the wear. Her eyes were swollen and red, and both of them had flushed, almost sunburned skin. A look inside revealed that the twenty or so 13 and 14 year old students bore the same symptoms. Scott, leaning heavily on his wife, looked the worst of them all, with a nasty gunshot wound in his upper thigh.

“Thank god,” Jean said, motioning Logan inside. Wade pranced after him, sheathing his katanas. 

“The hell happened to all you?” Logan asked. 

“They hit us with tear gas,” Scott said, voice strained. “Kept me from being useful for a while. We weren’t able to get out of this wing and they trapped us here.” His lip twitched up in a half-hearted smile. “You’re fashionably late as always, I see.”

“He has impeccable dramatic timing. It’s the Broadway actor in him,” Wade spoke. Jean and Scott looked at the merc in red for the first time since he’d entered the room. 

“Wade Wilson, I presume,” Jean said. Wade bowed low. 

“That’s me. But my friends call me “shotgun,” because I only need one pump.”

The situation did not call for jokes, and it certainly didn’t call for Logan to laugh at those jokes, but he couldn’t help the snort that escaped him. He cleared his throat at a look from Scott. 

“I see he found you,” Scott said.

“Sort of,” Logan answered. 

Wade leaned forward. “He actually ran into me. It would be a fun little meet-cute if we all weren’t under siege by raging mutant hunters at the moment.”

“Where do you need me?” Logan asked his teammates. “What’s next?”

Scott and Jean glanced back at the fearful student body crouched at the very back of the room. The kids all appeared too shell-shocked to say much. It probably didn’t help that Logan must have looked like a walking nightmare, dripping gore onto the carpets. 

“From the radio chatter, it sounds like everyone’s made it to the lower levels but Ororo and Jubilee,” Scott said. “There was a group of students sheltering in the gym during the attack and they went to find them. They haven’t checked in in a while.”

Not Jubilee. Icy dread wrapped its fingers around Logan’s heart. This was unusual; there was always fear someone wouldn’t walk away in a battle, but Logan could normally control that feeling. Jubilee was also an incredibly capable member of the team even at her young age. But if Jean, Scott, and Remy had barely made it, there was no telling what had happened to her and Ororo.

“We’ll head to the gym and bring them back,” Logan said when he found his voice moments later. “Are you good to get to the basement levels?”

“I’m assuming you cleared a path?” Jean asked, motioning to a blood-soaked Logan. 

“And did he ever!” Wade gushed. “Went full Anakin Skywalker on these Tusken Raiders. But don’t worry, we’re not looking to execute Order 66.” 

“There shouldn’t be anyone if you follow the hall directly to the stairs. I can’t speak for the lower levels,” Logan warned. 

Scott nodded. “We can call for an escort to meet us there. Piotr should be able to help.”

Logan and Wade stepped out, followed by the others. Scott limped forward, still supported almost entirely by Jean. As they filed past, Logan stopped the X-Men.

“Did we lose anyone?” He kept his voice low. He was afraid of the answer, but he had to know. Subconsciously or otherwise, Wade shifted closer to him until their shoulders were touching. The lure burned even through the layers of fabric. But it wasn’t an electric draw this time; it was a grounding wire. 

Jean and Scott exchanged a look. “Charles was hit. Last we heard, Hank was taking care of him. But he kept the initial attack from being nearly as devastating as it could have been,” Scott answered. 

“No one else?”

Jean shook her head. “Not that we know of. But the battle’s not won yet.”

No, no it wasn’t. There were at least two X-Men still unaccounted for, and who knew how many students. 

“Come on, Peanut. We have a Storm to chase,” Wade said, nudging Logan with his elbow. 

They turned to leave, but Jean called after them. “We’ll see you with Jubilee and Ororo in the basement.” 

Logan set his jaw, determined to make it so. The gym was a distance away, requiring them to leave the main mansion and cross the smoldering lawns. Wade and Logan raced in that direction, dispatching any hunters they came across. As they neared the gymnasium, the tell-tale signs of Ororo’s powers became evident. 

At first it was trees ripped out of the ground by strong winds, flooded pathways, and melting hail the size of baseballs. There were bodies, too, hunters lying beside their weapons that had been rent asunder by the elements. But the damage worried Logan because it was all localized. Surely Ororo would have cast her powers to cover the entire X Mansion, since the mutant hunters were everywhere? And why weren’t the storms still raging?

“Maybe she didn’t want to risk injuring the students or your International Force of Super Friends?” Wade said, seeming to read Logan’s thoughts. 

“Maybe,” the mutant answered, but he wasn’t convinced. 

There was no fire in this area of the grounds, likely extinguished by the storms, and the lights had been shattered. They were in the silent pitch dark, without even the sound of gunfire to guide them onward. It was eerie, and once again Logan wondered if they were too late. They didn’t run into any more hunters until they crested a hill and saw the gymnasium, half of it’s exterior wall blown off. 

There was the last of the mob, fifteen or so hunters all gathered around the gaping hole in a half circle. Planted squarely within the building’s wound was Jubilee, dropped into a defensive stance, her hands sparking with energy. She looked torn up but the fact that she was still standing filled Logan with relief. He couldn't see Ororo or any of the students. At this distance it would be hard for a normal human to make out what was being said, but Logan heard it all clear as day.

“You just don’t know when to quit, do you, mutie?” one of the hunters taunted. 

Jubilee spat blood on the ground. “Not so tough without your ammo, are ya? Who wants to try to fight me like a real man?” To emphasize her statement, she hurled a handful of fireworks onto the ground at the speaker’s feet. It exploded, but it had all the force of a firecracker. She was fading. 

“I can handle a few sparks if it means I get to watch the light leave a mutie’s eyes,” one of the hunters spoke up. He was a taller man built like a brick shit house, but to Jubilee’s credit, she didn't flinch when he stepped forward and cracked his knuckles. Instead, she smirked and looked him up and down. 

“Almost a fair fight.”

It would not end well, but Logan didn’t know if he’d be able to get to her fast enough. He made to run, but Wade put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. 

“Hold your horses, Logi Bear.” Before Logan could rip away, the merc was drawing a pistol from his hip with his other hand, and he fired off two shots. They hit home: one in the mutant hunter’s back, the other in his head. The man dropped like a sack of rocks. Jubilee blinked, squinting through the dark. The other hunters turned, too, and Logan could smell their fear. If they truly didn’t have bullets left for their weapons, if they’d truly exhausted their entire supply of ammo trying to get at Ororo and Jubilee, this would be an easy fight. 

“How do you want to play this?” Wade whispered. He had already holstered his pistol and was reaching for his katanas. What Logan really wanted was to rip the fuckers to shreds. Anyone who was willing to kill innocents, and innocent children at that, deserved whatever he was going to give them. But he knew that wasn’t the right answer here. They were out of ammo. He had to at least give them the chance to surrender peacefully, didn’t he? That’s what Charles would want. 

“Not yet. We give them the chance to stand down.”

Wade did not like that. “They infiltrated a school to kill kids. They executed Order 66—or tried to. And they’ll do it again given the chance.”

“We still have to give them the option,” Logan said gruffly. He didn’t like it either, but it was the right thing to do. And, if he hoped they laughed in his face and gave him an excuse to shred them with his claws, that didn’t make him a monster.

Wade made an annoyed noise but dropped his hands. “Fine. Your way.”

The two walked down the hill, stepping into view of Jubilee and the mutant hunters. Logan would never forget the way the teen’s face changed when he approached: from a dark scowl to a blinding smile that looked out of place on her battered face. 

Logan stopped before the circle and crossed his arms. “Stand down. You are outmatched. You can still walk away.”

A few laughs rose from the gathered mob. One of the mutant hunters broke through the crowd. “If the Good Lord has decided this is how it ends, then so be it. At least we died doing his bidding—wiping your kind from the face of the Earth.”

Logan grinned. Snikt. “I was hoping you would say that.” 

The battle was quick, if it could even be called a battle. The hunters attempted to use their guns as bludgeoning weapons, but if bullets didn’t stop Wade or Logan, blunt force trauma wasn’t going to, either. In the span of a minute the two had mowed down the entire mob. 

“We really need to get you a suit, Wolvie,” Wade said, looking at Logan. “Mine’s red so the bad guys can’t see me bleed. Yours should be red so we don’t see how much they bleed.”

The comment earned Wade a smirk from his soulmate, but it was short-lived when Jubilee ran up to them.

“You’re here! Thank god. Storm’s hurt, and it’s bad.”

“What about the students?” Logan asked, already stalking towards the blown-out hole in the gym building. Wade and Jubilee followed. 

“Storm told them to barricade themselves in the locker rooms,” she answered. “They’re safe.”

The inside of the gym was in shambles, with one of the basketball hoops hanging onto the ceiling by mere threads of metal. The wooden floors were charred in some places, completely torn up in others. Ororo was by the bleachers, lying on her side, a dark stain on her abdomen. 

“Fuck,” Logan cursed, and raced to her side. The woman weakly opened her eyes as he approached, and a smile turned the corners of her lips upward. 

“Look who showed up,” she said, her voice barely audible. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, leaving a glistening trail on her skin. 

“The mob is taken care of. We need to get you to Hank,” Logan said. But he already felt like it was too late—there was no way he could walk back to the main building fast enough. From the looks of it, Ororo had already lost a massive amount of blood. She must have already pieced this together, though she had the good sense not to say anything to him. 

Wade, however, did not. As Logan got his arms under the other X-Man’s body, the merc said, “No offense, Peanut, but you aren’t Quicksilver. You’ll never make it in time.”

“Do you have any other ideas, then?” Logan growled. “Or are you just pointing shit out—”

“The hunters had a Gator.”

Logan glanced over his shoulder and saw that Wade was peering around the outside of the gym through the hole in the wall. If Logan shifted just slightly, he could make out the green utility vehicle sitting just to the side of the hole in the gym wall. “Does it still have juice?”

Wade glanced at the gages on the Gator’s dashboard. “Looks like it.”

“You got lucky, Logan,” Ororo said, attempting a joke. Her voice was fading, though, and Logan didn’t have a moment to spare. He hastened over to the UTV and gently set Ororo in the bed. She grunted as he jostled her but made no other noise. 

“Wade, can you drive her—”

“Oh, no,” Wade said. “I’m a passenger princess. You drive; I’ll escort the students back with Jubilee.”

There was no time to argue. “Fine, Princess. See you back at the Mansion?”

Wade saluted. “Aye aye, Cap’n.”

With a last look over his shoulder, Logan pulled the Gator away from the building and urged it as fast as it would go back to the main building. The trip only took a few minutes, but in those minutes Logan couldn’t help but wonder why Wade didn’t want to drive. He knew how , and he’d done it often enough; Vanessa had said as much. The answer came in the form of the lure, stretching like a rubber band between them. 

He was going to leave.

The lure remained unanswered, and the jumps would continue. Wade still wasn’t ready to complete the bond. Fuck . This thought alone was devastating, but with Ororo bleeding out in the back of the Gator, there was nothing Logan could do about it. So he pushed it from his mind and focused on the task at hand. 

Only a few moments later he arrived at the Mansion proper. He lifted his injured teammate from the bed of the Gator, trying to rush without making her injuries worse. Ororo didn’t make a sound as he lifted her, and her breathing was rapid and worryingly shallow. She didn’t have much time left. No hunters met him as he hurried down to the basement, but there were bodies of them littered around the rooms. 

When he reached the infirmary he noticed a line of students, some crying, some staring blankly at the wall, all with minor injuries waiting to be treated. Scott was sitting with a bandaged leg just outside, and his head snapped up when Logan arrived. His mouth twisted with horror when he caught sight of the other mutant carrying Ororo in his arms. 

“Is she—”

“Not yet,” Logan said. “Where’s Hank?”

On cue, the blue-furred doctor materialized beside him. He looked weary, spent. It was not the Hank Logan was used to seeing. 

“I’ll take her from here,” he said, and took Ororo from Logan’s arms. Then he whisked her off to some operating suite, leaving Logan and Scott to watch helplessly. 

“Jubilee?” Scott asked. 

“Worse for the wear, but safe.”

“And the students?”

“Also safe. Wade is escorting them back,” Logan said, and his fists clenched at his sides. “Or so he says.”

Scott sighed. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you about him. It didn’t seem like our place to interfere, but…” His voice trailed off. “How is he mixed up in this?”

Logan leaned against the wall, shoving his hands into his pockets. “That asshole from Weapon X. Ajax. Wade was hunting him, and I guess he learned that the fucker had plans to attack the X Mansion to get at both of us. Ajax saw me at the X Genesis warehouse, so it’s not just Wade. This is because of me, too.”

“It’s no one’s fault but Ajax’s,” Scott told him. “And so far everyone is accounted for. Nothing but flesh wounds for the most part. The Professor is stable, and Ororo is tough. She’ll pull through.”

Logan didn’t have anything to say to that. He lapsed into silence, staring at the floor. People moved around him, and he realized quickly he was in the way in the infirmary so he stepped into the hall. The lights and sounds blurred until nothing was distinct, nothing was focused. 

And that’s when the lure appeared. It writhed like a thing possessed in his chest, demanding an answer. Logan jerked his head up in surprise. Wade had come back ? Yes, there, moving through the blur of X-Men and students beneath the mansion was a red-suited man in a mask. He was leading a group of adolescents and trailing Jubilee, who walked with a slight limp. The two of them approached Logan. 

“I don’t know if you have shit timing or the best timing in the world,” Jubilee said, leaning against the wall beside him. “How’s Ororo?”

“Hank has her.” 

“Dr. McCoy is the best doctor the Federation has. She’s in good hands,” Wade said sagely, earning him looks from both Logan and Jubilee. 

“Surprised to see you stuck around,” the older mutant addressed his soulmate. Wade laughed. 

“Oh no, I told you. I don’t like to drive.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Princess.” 

Wade pressed a hand to his chest. “Is that my name now? Did you give me a nickname?”

“You’re not the only one who can give them out.”

“Princess just has such a nice ring to it. Do I get a crown to go with it?”

“Deadpool wouldn’t stop talking the whole way back,” Jubilee said, looking up at Logan. “How do you know him?”

Logan glanced over at Wade, and despite the mask he could tell the merc was staring hard back, as if daring him to deny the truth. Out of nowhere, a verse from Kurt’s Holy Book came to his mind: Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. So far, the X-Men who hadn’t interacted with Vanessa didn’t know who Wade was. Logan had left their status off the record after the warehouse explosion. He hadn’t mentioned who he really was at the merc’s memorial. To this day, only a handful of people knew what Wade was to Logan, but there was no need to hide it anymore. No need to deny the merc again. 

He offered Wade a quiet smile. “He’s my soulmate.”

Chapter Text

“I did think you were going to leave, for the record.”

Logan and Wade were standing at the top of the drive, having texted Vanessa to tell her it was safe to come back. Now they waited for her to come walking up the drive as they watched the paramedics carry injured students and X-Men to the hospital for more thorough care than the field dressings an overwhelmed Hank had given them. Ororo and Charles were the first to leave—the latter stable and awake, the former in critical condition but undoubtedly alive. 

Miraculously, the only fatalities had been those of the cops who’d lost the line and every mutant hunter that had broken it. The majority of the students had made it out relatively unscathed—some broken bones, some nasty burns, but nothing life-threatening. The anti-mutant bigots would likely rally in a day or two to cry about how convenient it was that no mutants had died in the attack, but that was a problem for the next day. Tonight, Logan was just relieved that his team, all of his team, had survived. 

Just like in Coquitlam, the police were taking statements from the survivors. Wade had so far managed to evade every cop, but Logan had not been so lucky. He could go for a cigar and a full bottle of whiskey after all that. 

“Still kind of surprised you’re still around, now that everyone is safe,” Logan continued. Wade snorted. 

“I thought long and hard about leaving,” he said. “But then I thought of something else long and hard.” The merc paused to look Logan up and down. 

“Jesus christ, ” the mutant said with a laugh and a roll of his eyes.

“So I stayed, because you’re right. This has gone on long enough. And if you reject me, it’s nothing new,” Wade finished with a shrug. Logan nudged the merc with his shoulder.

“I’m not going to do that. And if I did reject you, everyone would know. You’re not my poorly-kept secret anymore,” he explained. This was the most relaxed he’d felt in a while, completely at ease around Wade. Sure, the soulmate lure still burned distractingly like a fire behind his rib cage, but that would hopefully be all over soon.

“You say that now . Just wait until I take this mask off.” Wade motioned to his fully-covered face. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

Logan’s expression mellowed out into something wistful. “Let me make that decision. Take it off.”

Wade hesitated. “Look, I want to prepare you. It’s like looking at—”

“I don’t care,” the mutant said. He stared hard into the blank whites of the mask, wishing he could see the soft gold-flecked brown of his soulmate’s true eyes beneath them. He shifted closer to Wade, moving so mere inches of space existed between them. The lure roared like a hungry beast, demanding to be sated. “Take it off.”

“Just know, as soon as I find Francis, he’s going to fix what he did to me before I blow his brains out. It’s temporary.”

How Wade was this coherent when they were so close together was a mystery. Logan was seconds away from kissing his soulmate through the god-forsaken mask. The lure was nearly unbearable, and it took everything in him to keep the two magnets apart. It was, however, Wade’s turn to make a move, and despite the merc dragging his feet, Logan wasn’t going to rush him. 

Too much. 

“I don’t care if you have three eyes or a second head. I don’t,” Logan’s voice was low. “I care that you’re alive, and that you’re mine.”

Wade made a noise in the back of his throat that might have been a whine. “God, Peanut, you can’t just say things like that.”

“I’ll say more if you don’t rip that fucking mask off right now.” 

“Is that a promise?”

He was being coy, but it was obviously just a way to hide his insecurity at whatever Francis had done to him. Delaying the inevitable, all because Logan had, in his mind, rejected him once. He had to prove he wasn’t going anywhere. The mutant took another step forward, forcing Wade to take a step back lest Logan actually stand on top of him. His soulmate’s back hit the trunk of a tree. 

“I have waited almost 200 years for you to show up,” Logan said in the low voice. “And since you did, I have spent the nights I was not with you lying awake and wishing I was. Nothing as shallow as how you look could change that my soul was made for yours.”

Professions of love weren’t his strong suit. Talking meaningfully at all, actually, especially about feelings, was not a skill he possessed. The words could very well be ill-received by Wade. But his soulmate was silent for a few heartbeats.

“You’re not fucking with me this time?” he asked. 

Logan shook his head. “I’m sorry I never told you. It wasn’t my decision to make.”

Wade sighed, and reached around to the back of his mask to pull it off. “I swear I’ll find a way to kill you if you’re lying.”

Logan smirked. “I’m not.”

“We’ll see.” And with that, Wade pulled the mask off. 

The face that looked back at him took Logan by surprise, though not because he was repulsed or put off. In his time with the X-Men, Logan had seen all manner of physical mutations—scales, fur, extra or different appendages. He had been expecting a physical appearance that didn’t look so normal. Sure, Wade didn’t have any hair. Sure, his skin was scarred and imperfect. But his eyes were still the same, the deep brown with the golden flecks, and his lips still softly curved like an impressionist painter’s brush stroke. He was different, but he was still him. And Logan loved him. 

The call of the lure was not to be denied any longer. With no hesitation Logan took Wade’s face in his hands and kissed him, eager to taste his soulmate in his own body. Skin met skin and the pain in his chest exploded like fireworks, but it was not unpleasant. In that instant all points of the universe converged on them, and it was impossible to understand how they’d lived so long apart. He felt complete in a way he hadn’t imagined was possible. How do you know what you’re missing when you never knew you were incomplete to start with? 

Wade must have felt similarly, because he went from passively letting Logan kiss him to actively participating in an instant. His hands knotted in the mutant’s shirt, pulling him closer. They were pressed flush to each other in the shadows of the tree line, and the whole world melted away in that moment. It was just Logan, Wade, and the fire burning between them. 

Logan could have happily spent the next three days locked in a kiss with Wade, but he was stopped by the sound of something vibrating. He pulled away, frowning at the flushed face of his soulmate. 

“Are you serious—”

Wade huffed. “It’s my phone, you perv. There will be time for other things later.” He pulled the phone in question from a pocket in his suit and unlocked it. “It’s Vanessa.”

Logan was immediately concerned. “Didn’t you tell her it was safe to drive up?”

“Oh yes, first thing I did. She parked the Jeep by the woods, but apparently tipped in a ravine on the way up here and hurt her ankle. She just needs me to go get her. I’ll be right back.” He pulled his mask on and made to push deeper into the west woods, but the mutant caught Wade’s bicep as he passed.

“The woods?” Logan frowned. “Why the woods?” The far perimeter of the woods was a good distance away from the main entrance.

“I don’t know. To stay out of the way of the ambulances and cop cars?” Wade suggested. 

“Then I’m coming, too. The woods are thick. You’ll both be lost for hours.”

His soulmate shrugged. “You can come, even though you’ll be doing a lot of that later when I ∎∎∎∎ your ∎∎∎∎∎ ∎∎∎ with my ∎∎∎, ∎∎∎, ∎∎∎∎∎, ∎∎∎∎.”

Logan, fully accustomed to Wade’s odd way of talking, smirked. “Whatever you say.”

He began to lead the way through the woods, expecting his soulmate to follow, but Wade did more than that. He grabbed Logan’s hand and all but skipped along beside him. And while Logan didn’t skip along, there was a spring in his step that hadn't been there in a long time. The lure was still present, but “lure” wasn’t exactly the right word anymore. It was not a painful tug, but rather a need to be close. This bond, this otherworldly connection that had finally been made after a year and a half, kept them close and made the mutant almost giddy despite the events of the day. He felt like he was floating across the grounds as they made their way through the woods to the dry stream bed Vanessa said she’d tripped in.

The giddiness evaporated in an instant when the soulmates saw who was waiting for them. 

“Well, this is convenient,” Ajax said in his smooth British voice. “And here I was thinking I’d have to hunt you both down separately.” The man stood with Angel and eight of his own men on the edge of the dry creek a good distance into the woods. The Jeep was parked nearby, its driver’s side door ripped off and lying a ways away, no doubt Angel’s doing. And, held at gunpoint by the Weapon X villain, was Vanessa. She was glaring, though Logan could smell the terror she was trying desperately not to show. There was a cut above her eyebrow, but she otherwise looked unharmed.

Logan dropped into a defensive pose immediately, claws out. Wade wasn’t far behind, reaching for his own pistols at his hips, but Ajax stopped them by cocking his gun. 

“I wouldn’t do that. One more move and she dies,” Ajax purred. Logan hesitated before sheathing his claws, and Wade froze with his hands halfway to his weapons.

“The fuck do you want with her, Francis?” the merc asked. Ajax—Francis—tilted his head. 

“Why, to make you suffer. Why else?” With his free hand, Francis brushed a strand of hair out of Vanessa’s face. She jerked away. “The mob I tricked into assembling may not have performed as I hoped, but the night is not a loss. I still found this woman on her way back here, and I’m assured by a very credible source that you both care an awful lot about her. I have leverage.”

“Leverage for what, you dumb fuck?” Logan growled. 

Francis tilted his head. “I would say for you to leave my affairs alone, but I know that won’t happen. And besides, I’ve lost a lot of money because of you two. No, you are both going to surrender, and I’m going to spend as long as it takes finding a way to permanently kill you both. No healing factor is totally infallible. And if you don’t come willingly, I put a bullet in this one’s head and Angel drags you back anyway. What do you say?”

“I say I’ve seen Bond villains more intimidating,” Wade said. 

“Always with the jokes,” Francis said with a laugh. He pressed the barrel of the gun to Vanessa’s head and she failed to suppress a wince. “You have five seconds.” 

There was no time to form a plan, no time to work out how to take down Francis and his attack dogs. But, in a twist Logan didn’t expect, he realized he didn’t need to talk a plan out with Wade. Logan knew without even looking at his soulmate that Wade would reach for the gun on his left hip and aim for Francis’ dominant arm, the one holding the weapon to Vanessa’s head. The mutant needed to distract Francis for a fraction of a second, just long enough for him to miss Wade’s draw. It didn’t have to be anything big, nothing that would force their opponent to fire. Just enough…

“It’s going to be okay,” Logan said to Vanessa. 

“Oh, will it, now?” Francis laughed again, his eyes flicking to the mutant for half a second, and it was long enough to give Wade the opening he needed. The merc drew his pistol with speed that would make a Wild West gunslinger green with envy and fired. The bullet slammed into Francis’ shoulder and he dropped his weapon. At the same time, Vanessa yanked herself free of his grip, tearing through the underbrush deeper into the woods. The men Francis had brought opened fire, but Vanessa disappeared into the tree line, untouched by their bullets. 

“Don’t let her reach the Mansion!” Francis ordered, and his men pursued. Logan made to go after them, but Angel was suddenly there. He dodged a punch from her, slashing downward with his claws. She was fast, however, and he only nicked her arm. 

Logan tried again to get past Angel; Vanessa didn’t know the grounds. She could get lost in the woods on her way to the Mansion, and would be an easy target for the gunmen Francis had brought. But, before he could get very far, Angel grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and threw him hard . He collided with the trunk of a tree and felt the air leave his lungs in a rush. 

Logan picked himself up but didn’t have a chance to raise his hands before Angel was upon him, driving a fist into his gut. He lashed out with his left set, managing to cut through the flesh of her leg. She snarled and hit him in the throat. That stunned him and he found himself flat on his back, gasping for breath as his collapsed trachea worked itself back into shape. This was going poorly. 

Across the way, Wade had engaged Francis and the few gunmen who had stayed behind as backup. Logan and his soulmate couldn’t die, but it seemed like they might not win regardless. They were exhausted and outnumbered; a healing factor was no replacement for rest, and they’d been fighting all night. The endless waves of mutant hunters had definitely taken their toll. 

Before Logan had fully recovered, Angel was on top of him, grinning smugly. She grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and hauled him up, pushing him back against a tree and managing to get a punch in that broke his nose before he was able to respond. He head butted her, grinning with satisfaction when he felt her nose shatter. Her cry was pained and angry, and she pulled her fist back for another hit. The hit never came. 

Angel’s gloating expression morphed into one of confusion and rage as she fought against whatever unseen force held her hand in place. It was Logan’s turn to gloat. He knew exactly what it was. With a wordless cry, he tossed Angel away, enjoying the feeling of vindication as he watched her tumble down the slope of the creek bed. And there, standing at the point where Vanessa had disappeared into the woods only minutes earlier, were Jean and Jubilee. 

“Wasn’t expecting Round Two so soon, but I’ll take it,” Jubilee said, her hands glowing with energy plasmoids. How they’d arrived Logan had no idea. Had they heard the gunfire? Or had Vanessa reached the Mansion and alerted them? And, speaking of Vanessa, she was nowhere in sight. Across the way, Wade, who had been faring little better than Logan against Francis and his henchmen, whooped from where he was getting to his feet a dozen meters away.

“The wizards have arrived! Cast Magic Missile!”

The henchmen were turning their weapons to the two X-Men, but Jubilee and Jean, having had a chance to recover at least some of their stamina between battles, were too fast. At the same time that the teen threw her plasmoids towards the gunmen, Jean telekinetically ripped the guns from their hands. The plasmoids buried themselves in their targets and all of the enemy combatants dropped, their weapons dropping to the ground beside them. That left just Angel and Francis, and they realized very quickly they were outnumbered. 

Angel was standing, glaring daggers at the X-Men, but Francis himself was almost too calm. It was evident Wade had gotten a few hits in, because blood streamed from his nose and there was a large gash across his chest from one of the merc’s blades.  

“If you come quietly, you will be allowed to live and stand trial,” Jean said. “But we will not hesitate to use deadly force if you try anything.”

Francis opened his mouth to say something, but Wade cut him off, jumping in between the mutate and Jean. “Wait! I need to ask him something.”

Jean raised an eyebrow but made no motion to stop him. The merc turned to Francis, who was watching him with more smugness than Logan thought a man in his position should possess. 

“You’re going to do what you said you could. You’re going to fix what you fucking did to me.”

Francis chuckled. “God himself couldn’t fix you. You’re stuck as you are, a freak, and you can’t even die to escape it. Sad, really.”

Wade went quiet, and Logan felt his own blood pressure spike. He knew in the instinctive way of before that the merc was a fraction of a second away from shooting Francis in the head, and he found himself anticipating the gunshot. So when it came, burying itself in the mutate’s chest, he wasn’t surprised, but everyone else—including Wade—was. Because it wasn’t Wade who had fired the shot. 

All eyes turned to the direction of the bullet and there was Vanessa, looking like death warmed over, a smoking rifle in her hands. 

“Fuck that guy,” she said in a shaking voice. Wade was all of a sudden beside her. She dropped the gun and threw her arms around him, clinging to him like her life depended on it. 

“Hey, Ness, you did good,” the merc said quietly.

A sick feeling bloomed in Logan’s gut at the sight. He thought at first it might be jealousy, a feeling that had to be long overdue, but no. It was discomfort at the knowledge that Vanessa would have to give up her lifeline soon because of him. And he hated it. 

As the scene had played out, Angel had sneaked closer and closer towards the edge of the creek bed. She made use of the distraction and took off at a run away from the X-Men and Wade. Logan started to pursue, but Jean stopped him. 

“We’ll handle her. You’re needed here.” Her words were laden with understanding. She and Jubilee took off after Angel, leaving Logan alone with his soulmate and Vanessa.

Vanessa, for her part, though shaken, seemed to have recovered somewhat. She pulled away from Wade and punched him hard in the shoulder. 

“Ow!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she snarled. “What did you have to do with this? Is this why you never wanted to meet? Did you know this was going to happen?”

“I didn’t know about it until this morning, I swear,” Wade said. “I knew Francis was on the move, but the dickstain kept it under wraps. You do not want to know the lengths I had to go to get one of his goons to tell me what was happening.”

“Then I feel I should point out, if you weren’t out fucking around and had come to Logan and I earlier , this wouldn’t have happened,” Vanessa said hotly. For a man wearing a mask, Wade’s face was extremely expressive, and it was obvious he was uncomfortable. The merc fell silent and Vanessa pulled back, eyes flicking between Wade and Logan. 

“Which you did. You did find Logan,” she said in a near whisper. 

“Meeting your soulmate when you look like a walking mass of cancer is not ideal,” Wade said carefully. He reached up and pulled his mask off. “But if I’m being honest, I didn’t want to have to make a decision.”

“What decision?” Vanessa asked, even though Logan knew she knew exactly what decision it was. Wade’s hairless brow furrowed. 

“I can’t choose between the two of you. That’s like Superman choosing to either save civilians or kill Zod, and I’m not Zack Snyder enough to choose.” He looked from Vanessa to Logan. Vanessa pulled her shoulders back and opened her mouth to say something—undoubtedly about to make Wade’s choice for him. And still, after all this time, Logan couldn’t let her do that. 

The universe may have paired him with Wade like it paired Jean with Scott, but they were still people with free fucking will. They shouldn’t be slaves to some fateful bond. There were two things for certain in this situation: Logan and Vanessa each loved Wade, and Wade loved both of them. So why did someone have to go without? The solution to this problem was suddenly there, remarkable in its simplicity—their own version of the ending of Bandits, with Wade starring as Cate Blanchett to Logan and Vanessa’s Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis.

“What if you didn’t have to choose?” Logan asked, rushing to cut his roommate off. He looked hard at Vanessa and shook his head to keep her from interrupting him. Her brow creased in confusion. The mutant approached them and continued, “I get Wade Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and you get him Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. We alternate every other Sunday.”

Realization of what Logan was suggesting dawned on Wade and Vanessa at once. The merc, for once, was speechless, but the woman slowly smiled. 

“What holidays do I get?” she asked. 

“New Year’s and Thanksgiving weekend,” Logan answered. “I get Christmas, Labor Day, and Easter.”

Vanessa was nodding thoughtfully. “And Memorial Day?”

“We’ll alternate on that, too.”

“Hold on,” Wade said, throwing up his hands in a “time out” gesture. “Are you fighting for custody? Of me?”

“I don’t see any fighting.” Vanessa looked at Logan. “Are we fighting?”

The mutant shrugged. “Seems amicable to me.”

“See?” Vanessa motioned to Logan. “Not fighting. Sharing, like a blunt between two roommates.”

“Did you discuss this beforehand?” Wade’s suspicious eyes flicked between them. 

“No,” Logan said truthfully. “But you shouldn’t have to choose.”

“And you would both be… okay with this arrangement?” Wade was obviously still hesitant to commit. 

“Hey.” Vanessa put her hand on Wade's shoulder. “If I can’t share my boyfriend with my dad’s third wife’s grandfather’s cousin twice removed, what’s the point?”

The merc still looked unsure. “Why would the Wolverine and the hottest woman in the universe want to pass an unshucked Rocky Mountain Oyster between them?”

“Because we both realized what life would be like without you," Vanessa said. "And we’d rather have you as you are than nothing at all.” 

A beat passed between the three while the merc pondered her statement. Then, without warning, he was throwing his arms around both Logan and Vanessa, pulling them close in a hug. 

“As long as you both understand what you’re getting into.” He punctuated his statement with a wandering hand that gripped Logan’s ass, and the mutant knew without looking Vanessa had received a similar feel. Wade sighed in contentment. “Like warm cinnamon buns.”

The touch had Logan feeling a certain way—a good way—but he did not want to explore those feelings in the middle of the X Mansion’s ravaged grounds. There would be plenty of time for that when they got back to the apartment…somehow.

“Enjoy your cinnamon buns later, Princess,” Logan said. “We still have to get home, and you owe me a new car door.”

“Jeeps are so 1980’s anyway,” Wade said as he released them. He took Vanessa’s hand in his right and Logan’s hand in his left. “You need a real car. Something that fucks hard.”

The mutant thought his Jeep had been the definition of “fucks hard,” but he was curious what the merc had in mind. As they began their walk back to the Mansion, he asked, “Like what?”

Wade grinned. “Well, see, I’ve heard things about the Honda Odyssey…”

Chapter Text

Ororo did pull through, in the end, and Jean and Jubilee brought Angel in to stand trial. In an ironic twist, she was the only survivor from Francis’ mob. The vocal public who decried the mutants still attempted to twist the whole incident, but it was hard to garner sympathy for the mob when the hunters had gone after literal children, human or not. And, three weeks after the attack on Xavier’s, things were settling down.

The repairs at the school were already underway, and Logan was more than willing to help out with the rebuilding. He and a few other X-Men, those who hadn’t been severely injured in the attack, spent the hot summer days hauling lumber and aiding the contractors in any way they could. The school was on track to reopen in the fall, where Logan would finally begin his tenure as the history teacher. It was a long time coming. 

Vanessa kept her dancing job at the club and Wade went back to his mercenary work. Between their three incomes, they were comfortable, financially speaking. The living arrangements were another matter. The single bedroom flat was cramped with three adults, and though Logan told Wade and Vanessa he really didn’t mind the couch, Vanessa (rightly) pointed out that she did. 

“I’m not about to sleep on the couch on your nights with Wade,” she argued. 

“Three people have slept in a bed before,” Wade answered, to which Logan snorted derisively. 

“The bed is a double. Not even a queen. We won’t fit, Princess.”

“That’s quitter talk.”

“It’s the talk of someone who wants to sleep.”

When Wade made to protest again, Vanessa stepped in. “Babe, it’s fine. We need an upgrade. We can afford an upgrade. So we upgrade.”

The new two bedroom apartment they found was not very far from the old one, and though it was less than 100 square feet bigger, it still felt like a massive step up. Logan slept in a bed for the first time in months and he didn’t realize how uncomfortable the couch actually had been until that moment. The bed was even better when Wade shared it with him. 

Initially, Logan had been worried about the arrangement he himself had proposed. It still felt fragile, like a string that was bound to snap. Too good to be true—was Logan actually with Wade a year and a half after his first jump? It didn’t seem real that for the first time in a long time he had a place he could call home, and even less real that he had a soulmate who adored him and a close friend who hadn’t been left out in the cold. The other shoe was bound to drop sometime. But for now, Logan was content to enjoy his new normal.

Sometime around July, when the new apartment was starting to feel like home, Logan came across an item while unpacking the remaining boxes that jolted him back in time. It was a tiny fake Christmas tree, a pathetic looking thing half-covered in tinsel. The same tree Wade had decorated that Logan had made fun of back in November. The same tree he’d looked for during the fateful December jump. 

“Where did you get that?” Vanessa asked with a disbelieving laugh, catching sight of him holding the decoration. 

“It was in one of the last boxes.” The mutant nudged the open cardboard box with his foot. “Not with the other decorations.”

A melancholy expression softened Vanessa’s smile and she reached out to touch one of the branches. “No, I…I may have thrown the other decorations out. Christmas without Wade didn’t seem right. I’m kinda glad I missed this ugly thing. We can have a proper Christmas this year, since last year’s was shit.”

“Shit” was an understatement. Logan could still feel the lure blinking out, could still remember the crushing grief when he thought Wade was dead. And even the thought of ginger beef turned his stomach all these months later. But his soulmate loved Christmas, so the holiday couldn’t be completely thrown out. The date, however, would always be a hard one. From the look on Vanessa’s face, she felt similarly. It didn’t feel like a day to celebrate. 

“Why wait?” Logan asked. Vanessa raised an eyebrow. “Wade didn’t have much of a Christmas last year. None of us did, really. And isn’t Christmas in July a thing? There wouldn’t be reminders of…everything. Nothing depressing happened in July.”

His roommate chuckled. “Look at you, being romantic. Did you google this idea, too?” 

Logan frowned. “Didn’t you tell me I wasn’t completely hopeless?”

“Yes, I believe that was me.” Vanessa looked thoughtful. “It’s a good idea. Maybe we could make it a surprise. Spring it on Wade one of these nights.”

The mutant warmed at Vanessa’s acceptance of the idea. “When?”

“Well, one of your days for sure, since it was your idea.” His roommate smiled and nudged him with her shoulder. 

They decided on a Monday a week or so away, giving them enough time to order all new decorations off the internet. Wade was sent out with an eclectic collection of errands on the chosen afternoon while they decorated, none the wiser to their scheme. Logan had no eye for decor, instead letting Vanessa tell him where to hang everything. But, by the time Wade returned from his wild goose chase, the apartment looked cozy and wintery despite temperatures rising to a blistering 93 degrees outside. 

“I don’t know who is cooking with saffron, but twenty bucks for less than a tenth of an ounce is absurd,” the merc said as he pushed the door open with his foot. “Had to go to three different stores just to find the damn stuff, too.” His eyes were focused on the overflowing bags in his arms, and Logan quickly swooped in to relieve him of half. The merc still didn’t look around, instead staring at his soulmate starry-eyed.  

“Such chivalry , Peanut.” 

“There’s a reason for it.” Logan set his armful of groceries on the counter. 

Wade still didn’t take the hint to look around, setting the remaining bags beside the first. “Because a Victorian gentleman must take charge of any small parcel with which his lady may be encumbered? Isn’t that what they taught you in boarding school?”

“Shut the fuck up,” the mutant said, tone affectionate. “Just look around.”

At the same moment, Vanessa cleared her throat and Wade finally turned, his smirk melting into something awestruck when he took in the fake tree on the table and the glitter and ornaments covering every inch of the small apartment walls. His girlfriend stood in the living room, holding a sprig of fake mistletoe over her head. 

“What is this?”

“Last December was a shit month, and we didn’t want to wait another five months to erase the bad taste in our mouths,” Vanessa said. “Do you like it?”

In response, Wade crossed the living room in three strides, sidestepping the couch to scoop Vanessa into his arms and plant a kiss on her lips. Logan once again waited for the spike of jealousy to appear, some hint of resentment that he was sharing his soulmate, but he felt nothing of the sort. Only peace and good will, like the Christmas carols spoke of. It felt right. 

“But please tell me you still really needed the saffron, and it wasn’t just a ploy to keep me away,” Wade said when he pulled back. His eyes darted from Vanessa to Logan. “It was a pain in the ass to find.”

“Relax,” the mutant said, walking over to the two. “I’m sure we’ll find a use for it.”

Wade glared. “You both suck. ”

“I thought that was the point of this arrangement,” Logan deadpanned. “We both suck your—”

“Nope!” Wade interrupted him. Vanessa snickered. “This fic rating is still Teen, Logi Bear. Don’t bring the archive mods down on us.” The mutant exchanged a commiserating look with Vanessa.

“Good thing I didn’t have you pick up any fruitcake. You bring enough of that as it is,” she told Wade.

“Ah, but I’m your fruitcake.” Wade nuzzled her neck. “And I’m the kind that sticks in your teeth forever.”

The night progressed with spiked homemade eggnog (the premade stuff wasn’t stocked anywhere this time of year) and a playlist comprised entirely of different remixes of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” Logan and Vanessa had gotten Wade gifts, among them outrageously expensive toys that Vanessa called “collectibles.” She assured the mutant that they were worth the hefty price tag. Logan wasn’t so sure until he saw his soulmate’s eyes light up when he opened each package, and he knew he would go to unholy lengths to keep that smile on Wade’s face. 

Around ten at night, Vanessa yawned and stood from where she’d been sitting on the floor.

“It’s late, and as fun as this has been, I’m exhausted,” she said.

“Ness, you work night shift,” Wade pointed out. “Ten is not late for you.”

“Normally no, but this—” she motioned to the decorations all over the apartment, “—took a lot out of me. Besides, it’s not my turn to take a bite of fruitcake.” She winked at Logan, kissed Wade goodnight, and shut the door to her bedroom behind her, leaving her roommate and her boyfriend alone in the living room.

“We’ve got a whole night,” Wade said, scooting closer to Logan on the couch. “How do you want to spend it?”

“That’s up to you, bub,” Logan said, taking a sip of eggnog. “This night was for you.” As he spoke, the song on the speaker switched to a smooth, jazzy Mariah Carey cover in 3/4 time. A slow smile spread over the merc’s face. 

“Anything I want?”

Logan eyed his soulmate suspiciously. “Within reason.”

Wade was suddenly standing, grabbing Logan’s free hand and hauling him to his feet. The mutant was only just able to set his eggnog on the end table before Wade was pulling him close. “Dance with me.”

“To this?” Logan tilted his head. “Do you even know how to waltz?”

“No,” Wade said. “But you do.”

A chill rushed down the mutant’s spine as he took Wade’s hand and led him across the floor. “You knew it was me that night in November.”

“Well, no. Not at the time,” his soulmate revealed. “Thought the lure that night was just bad eggnog. I had no idea it was you. But I should have known something was up.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It was too old-fashioned, slow dancing to Frank Sinatra. Only someone older than dirt would have suggested that. Not Vanessa’s modus operandi at all.” 

The first unpleasant feeling of the night gripped Logan by the throat. He wasn’t Vanessa, and he hadn’t thought that a problem because Wade still had his Ness. The merc must have sensed the change in Logan’s mood, because he pulled him closer, laying his head on his shoulder. 

“I didn’t say that was a bad thing. It’s just not something Vanessa would have done. And that’s okay, because you aren’t her.” It would have been sweet, if Wade hadn’t added: “She’s small and delicate and flexible. And you fuck like a lion during mating season.”

“Piss off,” Logan said, but he was smiling. 

They swayed to the song as it slowed, and when it faded into a much more up-tempo poppy cover, the dance came to an end. Logan wrapped his arms around Wade, simply basking in the presence of his soulmate. 

The merc returned the hug, sighing. And, like he’d done back in November of 2015, he said: “I love you.” 

Only this time, it was meant for Logan.